Ever since he can remember, Ray had a dream of playing college football, but while his dreams were coming true during his senior year of high school in March 2007, everything was put on hold when he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma — a rare bone cancer most often affecting teenage boys.

Since then, Ray has been anxiously waiting for his chance to play football for MSU, and today, his dream finally will come true.

After four years of chemotherapy, multiple surgeries and rehabilitation, Ray received a phone call from head coach Mark Dantonio while sitting in class last March. Excusing himself, he stepped out to listen to his coach’s voice message and, with a feeling of relief, immediately called his family to break the news that he had been cleared to return to the football field.

Today, after two years on MSU’s inactive roster, Ray finally will suit up in his No. 73 uniform, run with his teammates through the Spartan Stadium tunnel and take the field as an active member on the roster.

“I just had to deal with everything that was thrown at me because I knew … this is my passion,” Ray said. “It’s always what I dreamed of when I was little.”
 
A devastating twist
As a highly recruited lineman, once ranked as one of the nation’s top offensive guards, the Chicago native originally committed to Boston College before switching to MSU and making what he said was “the best decision of (his) life.”

During his final high school football season, Ray noticed a lump in his lower left leg, which he initially wrote off as a possible blood clot or hematoma and continued to play. But as the year progressed, the lump began to bother him enough for him to see a doctor.

When he once thought of cancer as only affecting older people, his osteosarcoma diagnosis left 17-year-old Ray devastated. The first doctor he met with — along with his family and then-MSU offensive line coach Dan Roushar, who was in Chicago for recruiting — gave him a grim picture of what his life would be like. The doctor told Ray he wouldn’t be able to run, much less play football, and might run the risk of losing his leg.

“(Everything) stopped in one day, in one second from a guy who didn’t really understand how hard I worked,” Ray said. “He never knew me. I was just another case to him; I was just another patient.

“It hurt bad, (and) I didn’t do anything but cry as soon as I heard the news.”

For a second opinion, Ray met with orthopaedic oncology surgeon Dr. Steven Gitelis — who anticipated a much different potential future for Ray and fulfilling his desperate need for hope.

As the surgeon operated on Ray several times in the last four years, Gitelis said because the tumor was in the middle of his shin — far enough from his knee and ankle — he definitely would walk again and maybe play football.

“Given the fact that he’s a pretty large man and wanted to play in a sport that puts unbelievable stresses on the bones of a leg, we were just not confident that he could return to football,” Gitelis said. “But we were pretty confident we could save his leg, and we were pretty confident that he could walk. But football was a big, big question mark.”

For the Ray family, the cancer diagnosis was heartbreaking. He was expected to have a major impact on MSU’s football team while attending school on a scholarship, and like everyone else, his mother, Adrian Ray, was shocked when she heard the news.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” Adrian Ray said. “At the time, (I) just couldn’t believe it because it seemed like his young life was just getting started. … It was unreal.”
 
Under the knife
Immediately after meeting with Gitelis, Ray began 10 weeks of pre-operation chemotherapy to attack the cancer before having surgery in August of 2007. His initial treatment left his attendance at MSU indefinitely on hold.

As a member of Dantonio’s first recruiting class, Ray was set to room with senior offensive guard Joel Foreman, who took the news hard when he learned his friend no longer was going to be his roommate.

“I still remember the day when my mom was sitting there crying in our living room and on the phone with his parents. … He was telling us that he had cancer and wasn’t going to be able to start at Michigan State when we were,” Foreman said.

For a very painful, 14-hour surgery on Ray’s tibia, Gitelis had to remove the cancer while trying to spare as much of the bone as possible, but it still left a six-inch gap in his leg that needed reconstructive surgery.

In rebuilding the bone, Gitelis utilized a combination of a bone transplant and a bone graft to repair the six inches of missing bone. He said surgeries like this come with a complicated reconstruction — including inserting a rod, plates and screws to stabilize the bone graft — in addition to the complexity of the cancer removal.

“You have to remove (the cancer) completely,” Gitelis said. “At the same time, you need to try to preserve all the critical structures of his leg, which includes the nerves and the arteries and as much muscle and still try to preserve as much bone as you can.”

That September, Ray began his second round of chemotherapy, and when he was finished, the doctors told him he was healing properly and would be allowed to go to MSU for the spring semester of what would have been his freshman year. The idea of returning to football never left his mind and kept him motivated on the recovery road.

But when an infection developed — a significant risk for osteosarcoma patients — barely into his first semester at MSU, doctors said Ray had to withdrawal from school for another surgery in February 2008.

To clean out the infection, Gitelis and a team of doctors at Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush University completely removed Ray’s tibia and replaced it with a cement spacer, confining Ray to his home with his family to care for him until the bone was put back in.

“I had that spacer in for a good six months,” Ray said. “It got very frustrating coming up here and seeing how college is and just living my dream a little, but it was taken from me.”

In his second attempt at recovery, Ray was taking intense antibiotics and was gradually taken off crutches. He returned to East Lansing in September 2008 to start his first semester of school as he continued to heal.

As Ray was ready to watch his Spartans compete against Georgia in the Capital One Bowl to close out the 2008-09 season, his recovery took another turn for the worse.

The rod the doctors originally put in his leg had shifted, and Ray said he dreaded hearing that the doctors had to open his leg up again. Again broken up by this news, Ray made a declaration to his surgeons.

“I was tired; I had been through a lot already — two years ongoing,” he said. “I yelled at my doctors, and I told them straight up on the day of the surgery, I said, ‘This is going to be my last surgery. This is the last time I’m looking at you.’ And I ain’t been back since.”
 
Held up
Throughout Ray’s two years of surgeries and subsequent two years of rehabilitation, his friends and family and the athletics department supported his efforts while he still focused on playing football again.

As he slowly moved away from relying on crutches — which he was on for a total of two years — Ray set little goals for himself, and each time he achieved one, he moved on to a slightly more challenging one. Though he said his good days always out-numbered the bad, he could do nothing but pray when the bad ones came around, and his team did the same, Foreman said.

Another way MSU stood behind him was by honoring his scholarship — an act that touched not only Ray but also his family.

“Coach Dantonio is a truly, truly great man,” Adrian Ray said. “I don’t think he’ll ever know what he’s done for my son. … I just heard them talk about him the other day on the news (saying) that he has something special, and that is true — he really does.”

Although the Spartans always considered Ray as a member of their family, his own family played a crucial factor in his recovery. When Ray was forced to stay at home, his mother served as his nurse, helping him administer his IV drip and receive his shots in a timely manner.

On the other side, Ray had a tremendous affect on the MSU football team.

During training camp, the seniors made speeches to the rest of the team, and Roushar — now MSU’s offensive coordinator — said Ray frequently was mentioned, particularly by Foreman and senior quarterback Kirk Cousins.

“We’re obviously a witness to a guy who has phenomenal faith,” Roushar said. “He’s a very determined young man and, when I look at it, mentally very tough. … I know he’s had a great affect on our staff, but he’s had a great affect on our football team in a real positive way.”
 
Coming full circle
The idea of playing football never left Ray’s mind.

Although many told him football was out of the question and he should focus on his health, Ray knows football is his passion, and now is his time to play for MSU.

In January 2011, Ray was cleared for conditioning with the team, and in March, he was allowed to practice with the team and even participated in a few plays during the Spring Game.

After being forced to watch the Spartans practice from the sidelines, Ray now is participating in every drill. He took the final week of training camp off to rest, but his return this week proved his rest period was helpful, Roushar said.

“He’s been so good about it and being patient and working as hard as he can and keeping a positive attitude,” Cousins said. “When he does that, it makes the things we go through — those of us who are healthy — feel like nothing.”

Ray has had years to prepare for this day when he’ll join his team at Spartan Stadium as a member of the active roster. He said his faith and support system helped him get this far, and he’s now meeting the high expectations for football he originally set for himself.

“I always knew I had it in me, and I always knew that certain things don’t go your way as you grow older,” Ray said. “But it’s how you handle adversity.

“I just had to deal with everything that was thrown at me because I knew it; I knew I love this.”