No Guts, Still Glory

by Megan Othersen Gorman

Running backs take a lot of hits. But as many tackles as Jason McGaharan withstood on the field for Northwood High School in Ohio, they were nothing compared to the blow the then-14-year-old endured off it. That hit was literally below the belt.

“I was one of the starting 11 my freshman year, and I was incredibly excited about it,” says McGaharan, now 21 and a life science/education major at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. “So when, out of nowhere, I started having diarrhea and painful cramps, I didn’t tell anybody because I wanted to play football, the sport I love.

“‘No pain, no gain,’ right?” McGaharan chuckles.

The Pain

The 5-foot-10, 160-pound athlete lost 20 pounds of muscle in a matter of weeks. “When I finally got checked out by a doctor, he immediately admitted me to the hospital, where I dropped another 25 pounds as they pumped me with drugs I kept having allergic reactions to,” he says. “My bowel movements would increase, and there would be more blood in them. Pretty soon, they were just pure blood.”

McGaharan lost close to 50 pounds in less than a month. He couldn’t get out of bed to creep to the bathroom without gasping for air. Diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, he was in two different hospitals over 5 weeks before his doctors managed to suppress his symptoms with staggering doses of steroid medication. Accustomed to working hard for every itty-bitty yard, however, McGaharan never accepted the sidelines — neither on the field nor off — as his fate.

He lifted weights, regained his strength, and ran track in the spring of his freshman year, biding his time until football season. The fall of his sophomore year, he was Northwood’s starting running back, playing 8 out of 10 games. But just before the start of McGaharan’s junior year, the disease, like all fierce competitors, roared back.

“I was beyond devastated,” says McGaharan, who once again lost 50 pounds in a handful of weeks. “I was very ill, but more than that I was afraid for what my life might become. I couldn’t shake the thought that for the rest of my life, I’d work really hard to get somewhere and it would all be taken away just like that.”

The Gain

So McGaharan did what running backs do: he pushed down the field—and decided to take the disease away, literally. On August 1, 2000, the rising junior had the first of two surgeries to create an S-pouch. A week after the surgery, which left him with an ostomy, he began lifting weights—and practicing kicking. “I just really wanted to play,” he says with a shrug. “And I figured, being there as a kicker was better than nothing.” That season, McGaharan got to kick in six games and made 12 extra points for his team. But his winning season was just beginning.

“After the first surgery, I can’t really describe how great it felt to have the disease out of me,” raves McGaharan. “I knew now that the disease was gone, nothing— but nothing—was gonna stop me.”

October 26 was the date of the second surgery, to remove the ostomy and connect the S-pouch. “As soon as I got out of the hospital, I started lifting and running again,” he says. “That spring, I set every weight-lifting and running record in my high school. And the fall of my senior year, I got to be on the football field for the whole season for the very first time.” McGaharan ran for 1,700 yards on 250 carries — two school records that still stand — and scored 17 touchdowns.

“As bad as it all was, and it was very bad, I don’t think I would go back and change any of it,” he says quietly. “It’s made me so much stronger, so much more driven. I know now beyond a shadow of a doubt that life is what you make of it. That you can never give up. That there’s more to your life than what you’re going through at any given moment.”

Like football? “Yeah,” laughs McGaharan, now the eighth-grade football coach at Northwood Middle School. “Like football.”

Megan Othersen Gorman specializes in health-related issues and contributes regularly to health & vitality^® magazine.

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