Please never forget Tyler Trent
Tyler Trent didn't get to live a long life, just the better part of 20 years, because of that soul-less scourge that is cancer.
In place of those many, many lost years and all that lied ahead for him under a different set of circumstances, he gets this instead: Immortality.
My last correspondence with Tyler, months ago, I said to him that very few of us are as important in the grand scheme of things as we like to think we are, and that very, very few of us get to leave this world having made it a better place, and that he was, and he did.
My hope is that these past few weeks and months, he saw the light of whatever comes next at the end of that tunnel, that he could take some solace in knowing that his life changed the world.
He changed the world.
Every heart and mind captured in the fight against cancer, every tool given our best and brightest to battle this monster, it might be the heart or mind, or the tool, that matters most. Years from now, they may look at Tyler Trent as a key general in this war.
The young man's impact was immeasurable. He died young, but he took a pound of cancer's flesh with him, that's for sure.
But he also left a lasting legacy that should resonate with all the rest of us.
Tyler let us watch him perish, on social media, on TV, out at the 50-yard line before nationally televised college football games, whatever it may have been.
More importantly, he let us watch him live.
He gave us a window into his passion for life and his will to grasp on to every moment of it and draw from it as much as possible. He gave us a window into his spirit, his will to fight, and to persist. I'll say this, having gotten to know Tyler superficially over a few shared-history war stories and our crossing paths in the Purdue media corps: That was as tough a dude as I've ever met.
For people Tyler's age, there's something to be said for the benefits of being what they call "young and dumb," i.e. still at a place in one's life where you don't think big enough to really grasp the gravity of the hand you've been dealt.
This wasn't that.
This was a young man, from my limited time with him, that knew the deal, that set his jaw and wagged his finger, head up, eyes wide open, that took joy in the little victories. For some reason, I've long kept in mind the excitement in his voice last season, mid-game, when he yelped from his seat in Purdue's press box to me about a victory in an insurance matter that had been problematic.
I've not been around Tyler lately, so I don't know, but I'm sure there have been dark moments, the real-ness of all this. How could there not be?
But that smiling kid with the big glasses and the goofy Purdue jacket, that zeal was real.
That's who he was, who he'll always be.
I'll say this, too, and trust me on this: When you're in that situation that very few people are fortunate enough to come out the back end of, you don't know how hard it is, how difficult it is to wake up in the morning surrounded by people who know that they have a tomorrow when you may not, who know they probably have a five years from now when you don't.
To be able to smile in the face of that halfway house between life and death, to be able to weaponize it in the fight against cancer and inspire literally millions, it's the greatest measure of a man I know.
I hope that Tyler Trent has inspired you to live your life just a little better, to appreciate every moment just a little more.
Think about it: If you appreciate life and live accordingly just half of 1 percent more than you did before, and there are thousands more like you struck by Tyler's example, all those halves of 1 percent add up pretty quick, don't they? I hope that when Tyler died, he grasped that potential.
I hope you'll never forget Tyler Trent.
I won't.
The last time I saw him was the post-game press conference following that magical night during which Purdue rode his energy to that remarkable win over Ohio State.
He was surrounded by people more important than me, the rock star that he was, so a nod and smile had to suffice.
I remember feeling something out of the ordinary at that moment, like I'd been in the presence not just of some kid who I kind of knew who was dying of cancer, but of something bigger, something bigger than me, something bigger than you, something bigger than all of us.
It's not every day you encounter someone who transcends life itself.
It's not every day you're in the presence of immortality.
Rest in peace, Tyler.
And, on behalf of all of us, thank you.
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