Every season hundreds of football players seek to beat all odds and become the less than 1% that reach the pinnacle of their craft and don an NFL uniform. Every season NFL players are vying for starting positions or simply a position on a team. At this level, the journey for a spot is monumental. A tooth-and-nail fight to hold and maintain one of the select, prestigious positions on an NFL team.
For one NFL player this fight has become even bigger.
No longer is Kenechi Udeze fighting to maintain his defensive end position with the Minnesota Vikings, but has now refocused his 6'3" 280 pound frame to fight for his life. About eighteen months ago, the 2004 first-round draft pick was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Udeze missed the entire last season following his bone marrow transplant, rehab, and other treatments, but hit the field again for practices this past spring and summer.
Sometimes the limelight and stage of professional athletics prevents us from realizing the mortal nature of those who participate. The exalted men who don their helmets, pads, and uniforms in the NFL especially possess this larger-than-life aura, in my opinion, for whatever the reason. Perhaps it's because they're faceless as they enter their stage fully dressed from head-to-toe in their warrior gear. Perhaps it's because they remain distant and removed from the vast audience seated in the coliseum's we call stadiums, and present to watch.
Regardless, Nigerian born Kenechi Udeze reminds us that even the largest-of-life professional athletes must someday face two realities....their retirement from pro sports, and the mortality of our human being.
Though Kenechi Udeze may never wear another NFL uniform or play on the Vikings field he once commanded, my hope is that he becomes a bigger hero off the field than he was on. As he fights for more than an NFL position, more than an NFL game, or even more than a Super Bowl, let's hope he wins the fight over this blood cancer that has cut his NFL career short. We can only wish him this and more. Our best goes out to Kenechi Udeze and his family.
