Terry Ennis has taken on some big-time opponents during his storied career as a high school football coach.

Now, he’s working toward the most important victory of his life.

Two months after coaching Archbishop Murphy High School near Mill Creek to the Class A state championship in December, Ennis was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

After a summer filled with chemotherapy and surgery, he is back on the field. His body and hair may be a little thinner, but Ennis, 59, never really considered walking away from the game he loves.

“He is who he is — a dyed-in-the-wool football coach,” said Roger Brodniak, the Wildcats’ quarterback coach. “He is pretty much carrying on like he has before. He is built on energy, and he’s certainly supplying that.”

Ennis, who will find out in a few weeks if any sign of the cancer remains, said his body is holding up through the team’s two-a-day practices. As has been customary during his coaching career at Stanwood, Bellarmine Prep, Renton, Cascade and Archbishop Murphy high schools, he can still be seen walking at a quick pace from vantage point to vantage point during practice. Ennis, though, claims he is not quite as loud this season.

“I’ve got to be honest, I’m not yellin’ and screamin,’” said Ennis, who won 10 league titles and a 1991 state championship during 11 seasons at Cascade. “I feel bad about that, but that takes its toll. These guys are not getting a fair shake, but I’m writing down names and saving them up.”

The same combination of intensity and humor that have made Ennis one of the best whistle wearers in state history has helped the team remain on course through his struggles.

Ennis informed several of his assistant coaches of his illness in the spring. He told many of his senior players during a lunch at his house in June. There were no tears. Ennis simply laid out his game plan for the process of beating cancer. They ingested the plan like a play in Ennis’ Wing-T offense and moved on.

“I knew he was a strong guy and that he’d get through it,” senior Jevon Butler said. “I knew he’d snap right out of it.”

Butler, who has known Ennis for most of his life, said he knew something was wrong before the lunch at Ennis’ house. Sophomore running back Stan Smith said most of the team was stunned.

“Someone you’ve been around who seems perfectly fine tells you that — you don’t know what to say,” Smith said. “You don’t know what to feel.”

Now, Ennis’ job is to get his team to both remember and forget. He, of course, expects his players to store every nugget of information he gives them. In accordance with his one-game-at-a-time mantra, he’s making sure his players don’t let memories of the state title seep through their helmets and go to their heads. Never one interested in the attention perpetual victory brings, Ennis isn’t looking for sympathy. He wants the people around him to see him the way they always have.

“There hasn’t been much change, which is what he wanted,” Brodniak said. “He has a funny way of making kids do what he wants, and that was certainly an example.”

Ennis was initially reluctant to tell even those close to him of the diagnosis. Cancer has been an unfortunate part of the Ennis family. Ennis lost a sister and a brother to the disease, and was not sure how to break the news to his elderly mother.

With the surgery and treatment behind him — hopefully for good — Ennis has turned his attention toward building yet another team capable of contending for a state title.

“He lives and breathes coaching,” said Brodniak, who played for Ennis at Cascade in the early 1990s. “He loves being in the environment. It probably helps him feel like things are normal.”

A couple of days after his surgery, Brodniak and several other coaches went to visit Ennis at the hospital. They wanted to offer support and find out how he was coping.

“It turned into an impromptu coaches meeting,” Brodniak said. “We went over the defense and how kids were doing in the weight room. He perked right up. Part of his recovery, I think, is him being out there.”

Ennis planned his cancer battle for the summer so it would have minimal effect on his duties as Archbishop Murphy’s dean of students, athletic director and football coach.

Ennis said the cancer was caught “not as early as you’d like, but earlier than it could have been.” Tests in the coming weeks will reveal whether he’s fully beaten the disease or whether the contest will continue.

“I wouldn’t pick (cancer) if I had to choose something to do,” said Ennis, who took Archbishop Murphy to the state title in the school’s second year of varsity competition. “Most of that is behind me now. I’ll probably get some more information in a few weeks, so we’ll just enjoy the day.”

Aaron Coe writes for The Herald in Everett.