reshp1

September 9th, 2016 at 10:41 AM ^

Combating a rare blood vessel disease, walk-on fullback is living his dream on gridiron
 
For nearly 20 years, he has dreamed about playing college football. And in 2011, he got to the cusp of stepping on that field at Harvard.
 
But just when he got close enough to a real college game, he was sidetracked by a life-threatening condition.
 
He rallied to graduate and work on Wall Street, but the football dream appeared gone.
 
To combat Wegener’s disease, Hirsch endured at least 14 rounds of chemotherapy and five or six surgeries.
 
He had moments when he could barely walk and couldn’t talk, and there were no answers about his future, about how he would live, let alone work or be an elite athlete.
 
Yet sitting at Ann Arbor’s Real Seafood Company restaurant on Main Street Sunday after playing in his first college football game for Michigan, Hirsch finally exhaled.
 
U-M’s 24-year-old walk-on fullback, called “Gramps” by his younger teammates, realized he had to appreciate his journey.
 
“I’m the type of person that likes to keep working toward the next step,” he said this week. “I don’t like to linger in past stuff too much. But I will say on Sunday. It was just me and my parents hanging out. …
 
“I took a deep breath. It was the first time I had taken a deep breath in maybe a year like that. To just enjoy the moment there.”
 
Almost 30 hours earlier, he was in the middle of Michigan Stadium, lining up on a third-and-4, running a route and catching Shane Morris’ 15-yard pass for a first down.
 
Back on the Michigan sideline, Hirsch was swarmed. He felt like 30 or 40 of his teammates were patting him on the back and helmet.
 
“He came to the sideline and everybody hugged him,” starting fullback Khalid Hill said after the game. “It was almost like he wanted to cry. To see somebody’s passion for the game and passion for the University of Michigan is amazing.”
 
Big House, big problems
 
That U-M passion was force-fed to Hirsch from birth.
 
His mother, Karen, who grew up in Roseville, and his father, Dan, found each other on the campus nearly 36 years ago.
 
Living around the corner from each other in the South Quad dormitory, it was fate. Dating, marriage, a little distance for grad school and then different cities, they stayed close, settling outside Chicago.
 
Yet like that alumni association slogan, Michigan never left them. So, their only son, Michael, was raised on the Wolverines, growing up in the glory years of the late 1990s and 2000s, attending nearly 20 games in Ann Arbor and becoming a football player himself.
 
But even rushing for 3,375 yards and 50 touchdowns at Glenview Glenbrook South as a 6-foot-1, 230-pound running back, he wasn’t on Michigan’s scholarship radar for the 2010 class.
 
So the AP Scholar with every leadership and service award headed to Harvard.
 
“About as normal as you can get,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy said. “For us he would have been a multidimensional tight end, what we call an H-back.”
 
His freshman year was on Harvard’s JV squad. Not that he minded. He knew his chance was coming and was prepared to move to that H-back position the following spring.
 
Two of the players in the room with Hirsch are now in the NFL – Kyle Juszczyk with the Ravens and Cameron Brate with the Buccaneers – but he was undeterred.
 
“He was just a great kid, a great character kid, a humble kid,” Murphy said. “As we’ve seen through this whole process, an incredibly tough, resilient kid. And those character aspects are the first things that we look for.”
 
But a cold came first during spring ball. He “couldn’t shake it and it kept getting worse.”
 
Harvard’s doctors thought maybe mono, but nothing turned up. So he went home to Glenview, Ill., that spring after finals and made the doctor tour.
 
Four in a pediatric practice, with nearly 100 years of combined medical experience, an ENT and a pulmonologist.
 
His mother, Karen, had a full lineup but none had an answer.
 
With blood in Michael’s saliva, it became urgent.
 
Karen was awake nights, scanning the Internet, seeking a solution, another doctor, something. Then one morning when Michael was headed to his summer job and went to say good-bye, she couldn’t hear him from across the room.
 
Her mind flipped and thought maybe one of the old buildings at Harvard exposed him to something rare, triggering an allergy.
 
That’s how Dr. Juanita Mora saved Hirsch’s life.
 
“We walked in and she said, ‘I don’t even need to do any allergy testing. I know what it is,’ ” Karen vividly recalls of that day. “’I saw something like this in my residency last year. We’re going to send him right over to the emergency room. It’s a million-dollar workup, but I do think he has what’s called GPA, Wegener’s Granulomatosis with polyangiitis, a form of vasculitis.’”
 
The rare blood vessel disease was on the verge of attacking his kidneys, where it does permanent damage to many.
 
“We caught it in time,” Karen says.
 
Since that day in July 2011, her son’s life has weaved more than Jabrill Peppers on a punt return. But he has faced it all like a fullback: headfirst.
 
Getting healthy
 
It started with a few days in the hospital, with doctors circling through, explaining everything.
 
“When you get the news you have a disease you’ll have your entire life, it’s a little bit heavier,” he said. “It took awhile to process.”
 
Then he began treatment.
 
“I’ve always had a mind-set — try to find the most positive way to view every situation,” Hirsch said. “From the get-go, I thought about getting into remission and achieving remission. They told me start this treatment, these medications and start to think positive thoughts. Look on the bright side.”
 
Medicines, chemotherapy, release. Until he was expected to improve and instead regressed.
 
At Harvard, he was injecting himself every Friday with a chemo-type immunosuppressant drug called methotrexate.
 
He was isolated from his teammates and wasn’t on the field, and football was moving on without him.
 
It hurt to walk, he was tired, he lost 50 pounds in seven months, and blood remained in his saliva.
 
So the doctors tried different forms of chemo: Cytoxan and then the newly approved Rituxin. In another break for Hirsch, one of his doctors at Massachusetts General, John Stone, was a lead researcher on the Rituxin.
 
But the accepted treatments are mostly geared toward 50-year-olds, not a muscle-bound kid who’s 19, so there was some adjustment.
 
He rebounded, beginning the climb back.
 
Determined to stay at Harvard, Hirsch began working as the football team student assistant, filming from the lift, setting up the practices, small tasks that kept him engaged.
 
Murphy embraced him, leaving a locker for him and allowing him to use the workout facilities.
 
“I’m sure some kids in this situation would be just happy being a student,” Murphy said. “But Michael, a big part of his identity is being a warrior and a competitor, so he wanted to stay with us.
 
“He’s one of those kids that did a lot of selfless tasks — selfless and thankless tasks — that nobody would want to do that’s a recruited Division I athlete. As a result of that, and his personality, and his overall character, he ended up being an extremely inspiring teammate. I know I speak for our team and that class of kids: a world-class teammate.”
 
Why did Hirsch stay?
 
“I made a four-year commitment.”
 
The next step
 
Hirsch graduated from Harvard in 2014 — in four years as scheduled — with a degree in economics. And landing a New York job at Citigroup as a credit sales analyst, it was about as close as he could get to the football field.
 
“In terms of a professional career, I really love it because there’s a scoreboard,” he said. “So you know how much you could make or lose for the firm every day. It’s competitive. People are loud. There’s not just inside voices there. People are yelling across the floor.
 
“If I have to make a big trade, it’s like making a big play. I have to stand up, talk to the trader and say, ‘Here’s what I have. We’ll take 2 million of those.’ So it’s kind of cool because you get that same adrenaline rush. A lot of the people on the trading floor are ex-college athletes.”
 
Just as he was, but without the satisfaction.
 
He has yearly surgeries to keep his trachea open — at one point the average 8-millimeter opening had closed to 2 millimeters, “Like breathing through a straw,” he said — and a procedure he had earlier in 2015 had him feeling better than pre-Wegener’s by summer.
 
So he began researching away from the office about trying to play football at Michigan. He discovered he could apply to get some of his eligibility reinstated, and last August, he pushed the pedal down.
 
On his New York apartment mirror, he placed a goal sheet.
 
Play football at Michigan. Bench press, squat total, get stronger, faster, bigger. Score at least 700 on the GMAT (graduate school exam). Get in touch with U-M coaches, then get a tryout shot. Get medically cleared.
 
Touch the banner.
 
Like a movie montage with “Eye of the Tiger” in the background, he knocked them off one by one, while keeping most of it a secret.
 
Which only made it more unusual when Hirsch would walk into work every day last fall looking a little bigger. His neck, his arm, his legs. He was swelling — by his own design.
 
Yet he couldn’t tell anyone why he was working from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the office, 6-8 p.m. in the gym and 8-midnight in the books.
 
It all had to stay quiet. The university and football program had to accept him, the NCAA had to clear him, and Citi had to release him on a sabbatical. One it didn’t know he would ask for as he was going through his associate promotion interview while executing his plan.
 
In January he took the unofficial visit to Michigan and told coach Jim Harbaugh his story. After he got a preferred walk-on offer (no tryout) and was accepted to the school, U-M’s compliance department helped guide him on his long application road.
 
When Harbaugh called with the NCAA approval in April and Hirsch told his Citi friends — the ones who started calling him “meat” and “meathead” for his swelling appearance — they took a minute to react.
 
“They were surprised at first but then really supportive,” he said. “They thought it was cool.”
 
Many of them former football players, now they’re living through Hirsch.
 
All they want is to talk about his new life, to hear about practice, as he tries to block Rashan Gary or slam into Peppers. He’s on the inside, and now so are they.
 
His current U-M teammates saw it the other way.
 
“We asked him, ‘Bro, why do you want to come off Wall Street and play here?’ ” Hill said. “He’s like, ‘There’s nothing more that I want to do than play in a Michigan uniform.’ ”
 
Living the life
 
These days are not as odd as they might seem.
 
Hirsch compares his current medical maintenance to “pruning a bush.” There are the yearly trachea surgeries, he’ll need tubes in his right ear to assist with some damage, and there are yearly chemo treatments.
 
This year he did most of that in May, between leaving Citi and moving to Ann Arbor.
 
Michigan’s doctors were on him and continue to be, checking him out with their own specialists, even now.
 
But he’s cleared for football, so he’s normal, just like everyone else.
 
Sure he was in the freshman locker room for the first month of camp, dressing next to 18-year-olds, with Gary on one side and safety Khaleke Hudson on the other.
 
Of course, they were calling him “Gramps,” and though he’s a rap fan, he quickly realized he was too old to know what they were hearing, even though he picked up a few dance moves. but they embraced him as just another fullback, working with the second string.
 
Until Saturday.
 
Karen was in the stands with her family, in the stadium where she has watched so many games, often with Michael next to her. But this one was different, with her eyes fixed on him. She saw Hill and Henry Poggi pat him on the back in the fourth quarter, assumed that meant he was entering and she was overcome.
 
“It was such an emotional day,” said Karen, who still gives flowers to Dr. Mora every year as a thank-you for saving her son. “I cried about 15 times, on the car ride to Ann Arbor, during the game. All my friends came up. We had 30 people come and support him (many wearing Hirsch 41 jerseys). It was exceptionally emotional day.
 
“It was exceptionally magnified. Those were the same people who gave us support when I was walking around crying for a different reason.”
 
When the catch came, it was a moment that barely registered among the 110,000-plus fans, keeping alive Michigan’s final scoring drive. For those who knew, it was unforgettable.
 
Hill calls Hirsch an inspiration, even seeing him in the meeting room and practice every day.
 
Karen joined the Vasculitis Foundation Board of Directors in 2012 and has spent the years since as an advocate.
 
At this point, Michael’s goals are relatively small. Contribute to the team however he can in the next two years, soak in his dream, before heading back to real life and his job at Citi.
 
Though he has endured so much to reach this dream, it’s now about living it.
 
“When I go out there and practice today, I’ll be running scout team for UCF,” he said Wednesday of Michigan’s Saturday opponent. “When Jabrill or (Chris) Wormley go out there and make a play, and I’ve been going against them all week, in a sense, it’s like I helped them.
 
“And I get especially fired up for them.”
 
Before that, though, he’ll have his moment swirling from five or six years old, written on that note more than a year ago.
 
He’ll touch the banner.

Joined: 10/31/2011

MGoPoints: 34177

xtramelanin

September 9th, 2016 at 5:12 AM ^

great story.  not only did the kid come back, but played, caught a ball, ran with it.  awesome.  

the michigan difference. 

Joined: 12/09/2014

MGoPoints: 15439

HL2VCTRS

September 9th, 2016 at 6:41 AM ^

We hate the Freep. I hate the Freep. You hate the Freep. Rosenberg is the devil. But how about we not ruin a thread that's about an incredibly heartwarming story and journey for this kid just because it came through a source you don't like? Some things are bigger than vendettas.

Joined: 06/24/2012

MGoPoints: 5575

bluepow

September 9th, 2016 at 10:04 AM ^

When you do bad things, there are consequences.  I don't see vile for the Freep as tarnishing this great story (or any future story); it is simply a justified and necessary side show.  I suspect Hirsch himself would agree. 

Joined: 11/11/2009

MGoPoints: 3931

HL2VCTRS

September 9th, 2016 at 10:45 AM ^

My point was that it tarnishes this thread and isn't necessary to post. After reading the article, I expected to see some discussion about how much this guy represents what the University values or at least about his courage and commitment. Instead, by the third comment we had shifted to bashing the Freep. That takes away from the discussion about his accomplishments and his story. Hate the Freep all you want, hold grudges, etc. but don't take away from the conversation that should be centered on this player.

Joined: 06/24/2012

MGoPoints: 5575

-NTB-

September 9th, 2016 at 1:04 PM ^

It seems like the Freep hate, justified or not, should be taken as a given around here. Maybe the OP should have put a little caveat in about the Freep being BAD etc,etc. This is still an interesting and non-controversial article that should be looked at based on its own merits. If people don't want to give them clicks, they don't have to! Someone will inevitably summarize or repost the content of the article in the thread. Thanks for trying to put the focus back where it should be. 

Joined: 09/08/2016

MGoPoints: 155

bluepow

September 9th, 2016 at 4:17 PM ^

The best procedure would be for OP's to automatically cut and paste articles in entirety and make a comment to the affect of, "I have provided the entire article for obvious reasons, please no Freep conversation"  

That seems reasonably fair to all parties under the circumstances.  If the Freep doesn't like it, they can respond; I would like to believe this would be in the form of an apology which would ultimately kill the issue off and everyone could be friends again.

/until then, fuck the Freep.

Joined: 11/11/2009

MGoPoints: 3931

maizenbluenc

September 9th, 2016 at 6:47 AM ^

Playing careers, not to mention contributing to years of fandom endurance. I will not click on links to that deceitful rag, nor will I ever read anything on SI by Rosenberg. If the OP wanted to convey a story they read in the Freep, they should summarize. I also suspect the Freep of having users on this board that post links to try to get clicks. Not doing it. Not feeding the yellow journalists ever.

Joined: 07/21/2009

MGoPoints: 10630

maizenbluenc

September 9th, 2016 at 8:36 AM ^

And since the OP didn't summarize, I'll have to find out about Hirsch's story outside the Freep on my own.

Like here: http://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2016-07-18/michigan-football-…

I didn't down vote the OP for Freep. I down voted the OP because they posted "Freep on Michael Hirsch" "Subject says it all" and gave no more information. Look two posts below at "GREAT read by Spencer Hall" to see how an informative post should look.

[Edit:] The story is how Michael Hirsch has overcome Wegener's granulomatosis, an autoimmune disease, including chemotherapy treatments, to walk on, and now play for the University of Michigan.

Another link here: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/wol…

Youtube of Harbaugh talking about it on the Rich Eisen show here:

Joined: 07/21/2009

MGoPoints: 10630

bluepow

September 9th, 2016 at 10:22 AM ^

Stop judging the judgment.  It is what it is.  The Freep fucked up, not a little, but HUGE.  Correct me if I am wrong, but no apology was ever issued; continued external accountability is perfectly reasonable.  Just let it be. 

More importantly, love the Hirsch story!  I don't ever recall enjoying "garbage" time as much as with this team.

Joined: 11/11/2009

MGoPoints: 3931

Ronnie Kaye

September 9th, 2016 at 8:14 AM ^

How is anger at Freep any worse than the anger at Scott Frost that was celebrated here this week and chalked up to just being a fan? I agree that the Freep grudge is silly but the Frost vendetta is even less logical. It would appear that a large majority of this board needs help. Many of the opinions here are sanity by consensus only.

Joined: 05/09/2015

MGoPoints: 104

maizenbluenc

September 9th, 2016 at 11:32 AM ^

but I seem to recall many posts like the above with Freep links during the season last year, with the "read this" and link rather than a lead in description like in:

This post: OT: 30-40 Charleston Southern players suspended vs FSU for bizarre NCAA violation

or this: The Michigan Daily Feature: Jourdan Lewis Off The Field

or this: GREAT read by Spencer Hall

A short description like "Really nice article worth reading about Michael Hirsch has overcoming Wegener's granulomatosis, an autoimmune disease, including chemotherapy treatments, to walk on, and now play for the University of Michigan." Gives the audience enough information to decide if they want to click through.

The other way entices click through to see what it is about. The pattern sure seems like click generation on a convenient blog with a target audience. You're right though - maybe Freep readers are randomly less likely to expound upon their posts and there's nothing there :-)

Joined: 07/21/2009

MGoPoints: 10630

1VaBlue1

September 9th, 2016 at 8:07 AM ^

"I also suspect the Freep of having users on this board that post links to try to get clicks."

LOL!!  You're safe in here, you can remove the tin foil hat.  I really don't think the Freep, or News, or any other news outlet, is planting people to get clicks.  Maybe some people just don't hold on to hate as long as you do?  I'm not a big fan, either, and won't read a lot of thier stuff.  Mostly because the writing is crap.  But the usual authors are a no-go.  That said, I don't generally believe in conspiracies.  But they sure can be fun!

Joined: 01/31/2016

MGoPoints: 127051

ScruffyTheJanitor

September 9th, 2016 at 8:10 AM ^

That’s how Dr. Juanita Mora saved Hirsch’s life. “We walked in and she said, ‘I don’t even need to do any allergy testing. I know what it is,’ ” Karen vividly recalls of that day. “’I saw something like this in my residency last year. We’re going to send him right over to the emergency room. It’s a million-dollar workup, but I do think he has what’s called GPA, Wegener’s Granulomatosis with polyangiitis, a form of vasculitis.’”
I assume that, after this was confirmed, she produced a microphone from her lab coat and dropped it on the floor.

Joined: 02/03/2011

MGoPoints: 12197

03 Blue 07

September 9th, 2016 at 10:02 AM ^

Not really. I, for one, will not click on a Freep link (Mark Snyder still works there and covers Michigan). And though I realize others don't see it that way, there are some, like me, who are annoyed by even the sight of a Freep link on this blog, even if it's to a story where the Freep is saying something positive about Michigan. I'm done with that paper, forever, and honestly would not shed a tear if it went out of business forever. I'd feel bad for the workers who lost their jobs, but that's about it.

Stretchgate: Never Forget



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Joined: 07/01/2008

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Zarniwoop

September 9th, 2016 at 10:15 AM ^

That....

Was a good read.

Totally changes my perception of that play and its a GODDAMNED shame that Mike Patrick couldn't have known about that story when he caught that ball.

Instead, what he said was... give us a minute while we figure out who number 41 is (paraphrased).

What a lost opportunity.

Keith Jackson would have known about it. That's why he's the greatest.

Joined: 09/10/2013

MGoPoints: 10498

UESWolverine

September 9th, 2016 at 10:53 AM ^

I need to get one of those #41 Hirsch t-shirts I saw his family wearing at the game. How great was that when they showed his family in the stands after he made that catch? This story is amazing on many levels. 

Joined: 01/21/2013

MGoPoints: 4090

Hugh White

September 9th, 2016 at 11:01 AM ^

The article says that Hirsch was in the H-Back room with two NFL players, but it understates that point slightly.  The fact is, both of those players (Juszczyk, Fullback; and Brate, Tight End) are starting on their respective NFL teams now (Baltimore and Tampa), and if Hirsch had been healthy, he would have been competing with another tight-end (Braunecker) who was picked up by the Bears this year.  Harvard is surprisingly stacked with blocky-catchy-guys.  It's awesome that Michigan picked up this one!

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