James Conner - Fear Is a Choice: Tackling Lifes Challenges with Dignity, Faith, and Determination

For my grandmama, Ruby Conner, who passed away just as I was finishing this book. She was absolutely a woman who tackled lifes challenges with dignity, faith, and determination, and I will always carry her love and her example with me.

My mom gently scratched my back through my T-shirt as I sat in the chemo chair, watching the IV bag drip-drip-drip into the line that ran to the port catheter in my chest. I was three treatments in, which was just enough to know that they were not going to be a cakewalk, with an end point that seemed impossibly far away.

Two thoughts echoed in my head. One was simply two words: Keep goingan order I often gave to my mind during difficult practices when my body wanted to throw in the towel. The other thought was what my mom was murmuring quietly and reassuringly, just as she had comforted me when I was small: This will all be a distant memory someday soon.

A lot of people ask me how I managed to stay so positive through the ups and downs of my junior year at Pitt. The answer is complicated, of course, but the first thing I will say is that I didnt always stay positive. There were definitely times when I felt discouraged, defeated, and angryI think thats only natural. Its important to remember that those emotions are totally normal and totally healthy responses, as long as you dont hang out there or wallow in your negative feelings. But its unrealistic to imagine you wont ever feel them at all. If you are facing a major obstacle, show yourself a little grace to experience whatever it is that you are experiencing. Dont try to convince yourself that everything is great; youll know youre lying. But also recognize that you have the power to choose your response to your emotions. Personally, I chose to lean into optimism whenever I could.

The second factor that helped me was staying firm in my faith that God was working in this situation, whatever the outcome, and trusting that He had a plan and a purpose behind everything.

The third thing was having a tremendous support team around mefamily, friends, teammates, coaches, people at my treatment center, and even the communityto remind me why I was fighting and to lift me up on days when it all felt like too much.

And the final thing that kept me going was the promise that time marches on. As long as we dont give up, whatever we are facing right now will one day just be a memory. This, too, shall pass.

I dont know what you are facing or even why you picked up this book. Maybe you are facing a difficult time and you wanted some words of encouragement. Maybe youre reading this just for the football with no interest in the inspirational stuff; thats totally finebecause whatever prompted your interest, one thing is guaranteed: adversity is part of life. Hard times are promised to all of us, and if youre not experiencing them at this moment, I hope that something in these pages stays with you for when you do face your own challenges. Even if everything is going perfectly smoothly right now, the good times wont last forever. The awesome thing is, the bad times wont last forever, either.

Whatever plan God has for your life, I hope you trust that you are exactly where you need to be, right now, in order to get to where He is calling you to be tomorrow, in a month, in a year, or ten years down the road. You are the only person who gets to decide how you and God will write your story, together. My prayer for you is that when difficulties come, you will remember that you create your own destiny with God by your side.

Whats more, I want you to remember that your destiny touches more than just you. When you live beyond fear in the truth of who you really are, even in the midst of trying circumstances, you become an example to others and help them to live with the same courage and hope.

Keep going. Every year, every day, every minute. Just keep going. Someday, this will all be a distant memory, but what you do with the challenges you faced will leave a mark on this world.

September 5, 2015

The day that changed my life. It was our season opener against Youngstown Statea season I was certain would get me recognized by NFL scouts in time for the spring draft. Having been named ACC Player of the Year the previous season, I was in a prime position to make this my best year ever as a true junior. I felt untouchable, on top of the world. Nothing was going to bring me down. All the hard work, sweat, and tears Id invested in my training was finally going to pay off.

I was on fire the first quarter, scoring two touchdowns and rushing for more than 70 yards. I couldnt have scripted a better way to begin our game. Going into the second quarter, I was pumped, ready to go into full beast mode. As I lined up for what was to be my second carry of the quarter, a fleeting thought passed through my mind. The pro scouts are going to be watching, I realized. If they thought last season was good, just wait until they see what Ive got this year. I was already playing the highlight reel in my head.

As Chad Voytik, our quarterback, called the play, I pushed off. I got the handoff and ran to the right, rolling past one tackle and surging forward with the ball. Lets giveemwhat they want to see, I thought. I felt light, slick, electric. Half a second later, I felt a lurch as a Youngstown lineman dove low, hugging my legs and bringing me down. There was a pop as I hit the grass. As loud as the stadium was, that tiny sound deafened my trained ears. Oh, God, I thought as I rolled over, holding my knee, please dont let this be anything bad.

The pain was searing, but there was no way I was going to let anyone see that. My knee felt like it was about to buckle, but I was determined to walk off the field on my own two feet, even if it meant limping. After all, the scouts were watching! And they would still be watching every time the camera cut over to me on the sideline icing my knee. All I could do was sit there with a poker face, pretending my knee wasnt on fire, pretending I wasnt consumed by panic. I couldnt let on that, deep down, I knew something was wrong.

Its a torn MCL. Im afraid youre going to be out for the rest of the season.

There they werethe words I spent the past twenty-four hours begging God not to let me hear. I had blown out my knee in the first game of the year. I found out after spending an excruciating night trying to tell myself the pain would pass and that Id be back on the field the next week. But the doctors words ripped through the exam room and hung there for a moment as I struggled to process what Id just heard. My great plan for a dominant year that would launch me into the NFL draft had suddenly vanished into thin air, along with any ambitions I had for setting records and making the kind of impact Id always dreamed of making for my team.

I managed to hold myself together for about two seconds, and then I dropped my head into my hands and started to cry. All I had ever wanted to be was a football player; I didnt know who I was without the sport. There was a battle going on inside my head as I struggled to hold tight to my faith while feeling like God had just completely betrayed me. Everything I had ever worked for or cared about was yanked away in an instant.

Although I didnt know it at the time, there was a battle going on inside my body, too. Not long afterward, I found myself sitting in another doctors office staring at the words symptoms consistent with lymphomawhite letters on a black backgroundas they glowed back at me from a computer screen while the doctor confirmed the results of my biopsy. It didnt seem possible. How in the world could I have gone from a tweaked knee to a cancer diagnosis in the span of only three months?