The Undefeated

Chris Draft: Fighting On

Chris Draft learned early on that plans don’t always work out the way you want them to. Starting his foray into the world of football at age 10, he was heartbroken when he was pegged as an offensive/defensive lineman and couldn’t be a running back and wear No. 33 like his childhood idol Tony Dorsett. Then, while playing college football at Stanford University and later during his 13-year career in the NFL, he experienced asthma attacks so debilitating, they often left him hospitalized. But the biggest trial of his life came when he was preparing to begin a life beyond football with a new wife, 37-year-old Keasha Rutledge, only to see her diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer in December 2010 and pass away a short year later, just a month after their wedding in November 2011.

Through all of the obstacles and challenges he’s faced, Chris has never stopped fighting … and he’s learned that sometimes the greatest enlightenment comes when a plan doesn’t work out and veers in another direction. Fast-forward to today, as he heads up the Chris Draft Family Foundation (chrisdraftfamilyfoundation.org), founded in 2006. He pulls on his personal experiences to shape the foundation’s mission, goals and community work, which are all centered around uplifting communities and empowering families to live healthy lifestyles.

Below, Chris discusses the adversity he has faced throughout his life and how — much like football training camp — sometimes you have to experience something challenging before you can really understand the true commitment.

The Undefeated: Was there ever a time in your life or sport when you considered giving up?

Chris Draft: The point of football is taking you to an edge where you have to make a decision if you’re in or you’re out. That’s a decision that I was able to understand completely from an early age. When I first started playing soccer, I was 5 years old and I didn’t want to practice; I just wanted to play. My dad said, “If you’re not gonna practice, then you can go sit by your mother.” She was not going to be the one that said, “Oh, baby, it’s OK.” She said, “You either get out and practice with your teammates or you sit by me.” So, my folks made it very clear that it didn’t matter how good I was or how bad I was at a particular sport, I had to make a choice: Either go all the way in or not. There’s not really a gray area in that. Choice!

I believe that “Choice” and “Commitment” have defined my life. Are you in or out? And, are you willing to accept that there are going to be obstacles and challenges in sports and even bigger ones in life? My exposure to sports helped me understand early on that my plan would not always work out. But I’ve learned on my journey that sometimes the greatest learning points or the greatest enlightenment comes when my plan didn’t work out and when it went in a different direction.

So, when have I considered giving up? When you make a choice to play football, there are going to be plenty of times that you feel like you’re going to give up. For me, having asthma, there were plenty of times that I felt like my body just wasn’t going to allow me to keep playing, or living.

While playing football at Stanford University, I got to a point where I just could not breathe. I was diagnosed with asthma during my freshman year, but at the end of my junior year I told the trainers, “I just can’t play anymore unless I can figure out what’s wrong.” After the season, I visited a Stanford ENT doctor and he concluded that my breathing problems were a combination of asthma and enlarged tonsils and adenoids. They ended up taking my tonsils and adenoids out, and after the surgery, I felt like I was literally breathing a breath of fresh air. Did I consider giving up? Absolutely! I would never have said, “Let me experience breathing problems at Stanford and let me get rushed to the hospital five or six times during my NFL playing career because of asthma attacks.”

Football trains you that it’s going to be difficult; there are going to be difficulties. You are going to feel like you want to give up, that it’s almost too much to bear … but you have to be willing to continue to fight back. So, when you say, “Was there a time I considered giving up?” Yes, but it wasn’t just asthma! So, I considered plenty of times the idea of giving up, but if you want to compete in the NFL and play a game that is high risk, high reward and high intensity, with some of the greatest athletes in the world, there are going to be many times when you consider giving up.

The Undefeated: What were the hardest, most difficult things you encountered?

Draft: The most difficult situation was losing my wife, Keasha, to lung cancer in December 2011. How do you plan for your wife being diagnosed with cancer? You can’t! But I believe that Keasha and I were both prepared to face difficulties and not give up. We attacked each day and tried to figure out how to get better each day, rather than focus on the historical stats of stage IV lung cancer. My wife did an amazing job of finding the joy in each day, as she traversed the different treatment options, but on Dec. 27, 2011, she passed away.

After her passing, I tried not to lament on the fact that my wife was diagnosed with lung cancer at 37 and passed after a year, but to celebrate her and think about how her journey could inspire other people’s lives. Although there are few days that I don’t wish I could have taken more of the hits, taken more of the pain and allowed her to be the one to keep moving rather than me, like I said … it’s not my plan.

The Undefeated: How have you persevered in the face of that challenge and come out the other end?

Draft: Basically, my wife Keasha was amazing. She actually helped me move forward before she had even passed. Before our wedding date, Keasha asked me if I was okay with our guests donating to our foundation rather than receiving presents. The answer was easy for me, “Yes!” And we launched Team Draft at our wedding on Nov. 27, in 2011, and made two commitments: one to each other and one to change the face of lung cancer. Although Keasha only lived one month after our wedding, she gave me the will and the ability to fight on. We honor my wife’s commitment to Team Draft and to the fight against lung cancer every day as we embrace survivors across the country and challenge people to appreciate their lives rather than just fight their disease.

The Undefeated: What are some cool things that have come out of that gift Keasha gave you?

Draft: Keasha knew that I would fight after she passed, but she also knew that it couldn’t be an individual fight. Team Draft would have to be a “TEAM,” and that’s why she stated after our wedding, “I wish I could do more, I want to do more.” The Team that started with just our family and friends has increased over the last two years as we have committed to a national campaign to change the face of lung cancer. And, using Keasha and my relationships with professional sports, we have been able to make a difference.

If you attend an NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB or MLS game, you might be sitting next to a lung cancer survivor and you might not know it. Team Draft has been able to take over 100 lung cancer survivors to games in the last couple of years. We are led by Keasha’s spirit, which reminds us to not to just fight against lung cancer but to embrace the moments that we are alive. We can’t forget to support and encourage our survivors to live and continue to “Dance, Smile and Live” while they go through their individual journeys with lung cancer.

The Undefeated: What other ways has adversity positively affected your life?

Draft: My personal experience with asthma has consistently affected my outlook on life. During my NFL career, other players could maintain more of a mindset of being invincible, but my asthma was a constant reminder of my mortality — in football and in life. Asthma reminded me to think bigger than football. “Are you just a football player or are you more?” I could view my asthma attacks as just a health issue, or fuel to expand my vision of success. I believe that my asthma challenged me consistently throughout my career to embrace all the opportunities of playing in the NFL, on and off the field.

The Undefeated: What advice do you have for individuals facing adversity or challenges?

Draft: It might be a cliché, but I think it is important to find the silver lining in our trials and tribulations. If something bad happens, it’s not all bad. Whenever we experience adversity, it’s not something that we wanted, it’s definitely not something in our plan, but if we can learn from it we have a chance to be a better person. We can’t go back and change it, so our only option is figure out how do we use it to make ourselves better, moving forward.

The Undefeated: What does being “Undefeated” mean to you?

Draft: I think most people would define being “Undefeated” as winning. And so the question is, “What is winning?” Football teaches that there are two ways of winning: internally and externally. External is based on competing against someone else, but I believe that being “Undefeated” is an internal battle. So, based on that definition, as long as you are striving to be better and you are continuing to live … then you are “Undefeated!”

Wendy Bowman is a professional journalist with 30-plus years of experience creating content for magazines, newspapers and more.