Sometimes being a college football player means more than just what you do on the field. Ohio State junior linebacker Joshua Perry understands this.
When a 4-year-old Buckeye fan named with leukemia in Florida was brought to Perry’s attention, he reached out to the family. How could he help?
According to a touching story from ElevenWarriors.com, Perry and several of his teammates sent encouraging videos to Joshua Chambers, who was diagnosed with high-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia in February 2013. Joshua’s father, Jeremy, has roots in Perrysburg, Ohio and passed along his Buckeye fandom to his young son. As Joshua lie in an emergency room in Orlando, the videos began to pour in.
“I would forward them from my phone to Joshua’s iPad and he’d get a message and it would pop and he’d say ‘It’s another Buckeye!’” Chambers said. “The way we did it by sending them over to his iPad one at a time he was like ‘Oh another one and another one!’”
Perry, a native of Galena, Ohio, understands what Ohio State means to people in the area and how it’s important to give back in any way possible.
“It just goes back to being from around the area and knowing a lot about the Buckeyes. In Ohio, we’re a bigger brand than professional teams at times. When you’re a Buckeye, you have almost an obligation to Columbus and to Buckeye Nation to be a stand-up citizen, a good person and to represent Ohio State well,” Perry said.
Check out the full story here. It’s well worth a read.
For more Ohio State news, visit BuckeyeGrove.com.
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Sam Cooper is a contributor for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!
