SAN ANTONIO -- Texas reserve linebacker Lance McFarland will not play football this season while he battles a form of cancer, his father told the San Antonio Express-News.

Steve McFarland said Lance has non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The problem began as a lump in his right shoulder and kept growing, but doctors believe it hasn't spread, the newspaper reported Thursday.

"The type he has is very treatable," Steve McFarland said. "They think it's in the first stages and it's only in one place on his shoulder."

Montreal Canadiens captain Saku Koivu and baseball player Andres Galarraga have both returned to their professional sports after battling non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Steve McFarland said Lance hopes to rejoin the team in the fall.

"We are concerned about Lance's health and we hope everything goes well," Texas coach Mack Brown said Thursday.

McFarland was scheduled to meet with doctors at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston on Thursday. His father said chemotherapy was expected to last six weeks to six months.

"They say he will recover," Steve McFarland said. "That's keeping him going. Of course, with cancer nothing's guaranteed. But they say the type he has is 90 percent treatable."

McFarland, a 6-foot-3, 235-pound redshirt sophomore, missed spring football for personal reasons. He redshirted as a true freshman in 2001 and played one game last fall, against North Texas.