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HURON, Ohio (AP) — Almost all coaches at every level talk about their team showing courage in overcoming some sort of adversity, whether it comes in the form of a loss or an injury to a key player.
They all need to meet Nick Lenyo.
The Huron freshman understands adversity, having lost his left foot to bone cancer. He also knows what courage is, battling back from that devastating loss to become starting safety for the Huron freshman football team.
"I just wanted to get back out there with all of my friends and play a little football," the 15-year-old Lenyo said. "I played seventh grade football, and that was really fun. I wanted to get back up and play."
Nick also was a starter for the Milan Warriors travel baseball team last summer.
"I can only imagine what he's gone through," said Steve West, Huron's freshman football coach. "I can tell you this, everybody has bruises and scrapes, but we all look at it a little differently with the way he handles what he's had to deal with. We complain a little less as a group."
Nick is one of the freshman team captains and is the backup quarterback.
"Even when he was in the hospital, he was able to keep his grades up and keep going," said David Lenyo, Nick's father. "He's a straight-A student and a tough little athlete."
Athletic ability clearly runs in the family, as Nick's sister Allie was a senior member of the Huron golf team that finished seventh at the recent Division II state golf tournament.
"A little part of me feels a little nervous about it, but he is just enjoying himself so much that if that's what makes him happy, then I'm very happy he gets to do it," Andrea Lenyo said about her son playing football. "I can't tell you how much he loves it, so the fact that with everything he went through, he is able to do this and is enjoying himself this much, it's worth it for me."
The cancer was discovered during a seventh-grade basketball game after an opponent fell on the Nick's ankle and it never completely healed. Doctors at Firelands Regional Medical Center found a cyst that was determined to be bone cancer just days later at the Cleveland Clinic.
"It was a very difficult day when they came out and said it was cancer," David Lenyo said. "Then it was 10 weeks of chemo and waiting to see what happened before making a decision about getting his foot amputated.
"Nick actually made that decision on his own," he added. It pretty much came down to his only option, if he wanted to get back into sports at the caliber, was to get rid of it. He was a very brave boy."
Nick left the hospital after his final chemotherapy treatment one year ago and received his prosthetic foot just before Christmas from Leimkuhler Inc., a Cleveland firm that specializes in prosthetic and orthodontic devices. He was off his crutches within a month.
"Nick never stops," David Lenyo said. "He just slowly kept doing rehab. When the guy would say he wanted him to balance on his foot for 10 seconds, by the time Nick went back he could do it for 30. When he said he wanted Nick to hop up and down so many times, he made sure he could do twice as many."
Nick had his sights on playing baseball during the summer, but decided to go to football weightlifting to continue his rehabilitation and be with his friends. It didn't take long before weightlifting turned into a commitment to play in the fall.
"I knew I could do it, but earlier this year, before lifting started, I didn't know if I would be ready to play baseball, let along be out there hitting people," Nick said. "The first month of physical therapy was difficult. Then I started lifting and never looked back."
In the summer, Nick played first base, in the outfield and did a little pitching.
"He used to play shortstop before he got sick," David Lenyo said. "He's still working up to that. He played first base quite a bit in the summer and pitched some, but not as much as he wanted because it took a while to get used to the mound."
But football was always Nick's passion. He even broke the prosthetic foot during a game this fall.
"He broke it really good, too," David Lenyo said. "I ran back to the car for the other one, he refitted the foot and out he went. He only missed about five minutes of football. He laughed afterwards and said, "Who else can break their foot and go right back out and play?'"
Nick will be back on the diamond next spring and intends to keep playing football for the Tigers.
"There's no doubt that having that kid in your program is built-in inspiration, but it's real, it's not football-contrived," said Huron varsity football coach Tony Legando. "It's real-life adversity, not being down by 10 in the fourth quarter.
"He blends right in and has become what he wanted to become — just another player," he added. "He doesn't want all the hoopla and the lights; he just wants to be one of the guys. That sounds good for a story, but it's real."
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