After 71 years of inactivity, Bluefield College football resumed on Saturday, August 25, 2012, when the Rams took the field to play the University of Pikeville in BC’s first intercollegiate football game in modern history.
And, while the final score -- a 42-28 loss -- may not have been a win in the scorebooks, it was indeed a victorious day for BC. It was also a victorious day for Caleb Frye, a freshman kicker for the Rams who has a revival football story of his own. Frye endured a war with cancer that led him on a long road of recovery, wondering all the while if he would survive, let alone play football again.
A native of Glade Spring, Virginia, Frye loved sports at a very young age. He was a member of a Little Rebel pee-wee football team by age seven, and he also played soccer, basketball and baseball later as a kid.
But, before he had even finished second grade, Frye had developed a mysterious cough and cold sweats during the night. Soon after, prompted by a pain in his upper right leg, the family discovered swollen lymph nodes near his groin. After numerous visits to doctors and multiple tests, they learned what they had feared most.
Diagnosed in May 1999 with large cell lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system, Frye began the first of 20 sessions of chemotherapy treatments that would last a year and a regiment with Prednisone, three times a day for 30 days. “I had to sit there for hours to let it go through the process,” said Frye about his chemo treatments at Brenner Children’s Hospital at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
But, that’s when God began to make His presence known, said Frye, and to show that He had good things in store for him down the road.
Cancer free, Frye returned to sports, focusing on football and baseball at Patrick Henry High School, where he earned four letters in football for the Rebels and was named twice to the Hogoheegee All-District team as a placekicker.
Frye said he checked out the Bluefield College web site to see if the school offered a major that would suit his passion to become a pediatric oncologist, and soon after with his two-year associate’s degree from Virginia Highlands he became a part of the BC family.
With plans to study biology with a pre-med emphasis at BC for two years before applying to medical school, Frye said he’s thankful to not only be back on the football field, but a part of an historic Rams team. With so much focus on practice and game preparation, he said he knows it’s something he’ll appreciate even more over time.
Knowing cancer can return, Frye gets annual check-ups that for 13 years now have shown him to be cancer free. He gives the glory to God, he said, and tries not to think about a reoccurrence, but instead on the opportunities God has given him to play football, help others, and share his testimony.