You know how the story starts. You've seen it a thousand times, in movies and TV shows and maybe, if you're lucky, in real life. Kid gets a scholarship offer to play for a big-name school. Coach takes a liking to kid, treats him like family. Coach stands up for kid, gives kid a chance that no one else could or would. So far, so routine, right?
That’s where this story takes a turn. The kid in this story is a baseball player from Columbus, Georgia, named Kevin Jordan. Recruited by Walter and his assistants to play ball for the Demon Deacons, the rangy outfielder first visited Winston-Salem possessed of rare confidence for a prep athlete. Part of that surely came from the fact that he was good enough to draw the attention of the nexus of the baseball universe –- the Yankees selected him in the 19th round last year -- but part comes from some deeper reservoir of calm.
A 2010 high school graduate, Jordan spent most of the spring of his senior year sick with what everyone told him was the flu. While his classmates were skipping class and counting down the days until graduation, Jordan was steadily losing weight and strength. After he dropped 30 pounds, his family took him to Emory University Hospital for tests. What they learned devastated them, shattering dreams of major-league stardom.
Kevin Jordan has ANCA vasculitis, a disease in which his own white blood cells began attacking his own tissues. Soon after the diagnosis, his kidneys began to fail, and by last summer, Jordan was on dialysis three times per week.
