Great read about a tough Jayhawk

http://www.kansascity.com/166/story/1191567.html

What a great story, I really enjoyed, and thought some of you might as well, really easy to root for this Jayhawk.

KU’s Ridenhour hasn’t let hemophilia keep him off the mound
By J. BRADY McCOLLOUGH
The Kansas City Star


Freshman pitcher Lee Ridenhour, who has hemophilia, was drafted by the Twins but decided to go to Kansas.

LAWRENCE When Kansas pitcher Lee Ridenhour was a boy, his parents steered him toward piano and art lessons.
“We tried to channel him away from sports,” said his father, Bob Ridenhour. “But it was always back to sports.”
Lee, who was born with hemophilia, a serious bleeding disorder, didn’t want to be held back. Still, he knew he was different. As an adolescent, he felt older than his classmates, more cautious.
“If people were messing around wrestling, it was like, ‘I’m not gonna do that,’ ” Ridenhour said. “I just kind of avoided situations to get hurt, basically.”
Everywhere except the pitching mound. Out there on that island, Ridenhour has been bold, carefree, a risk-taker. His success at Shawnee Mission West and now during his freshman year at KU have challenged the prevailing view of hemophiliacs — that they are fragile and shouldn’t participate in sports. Ridenhour, the Jayhawks’ Sunday starter for most of this surprising KU season, has a 5-2 record and a 4.09 ERA in 72 2/3 innings.
Kids with hemophilia often struggle with self-esteem, but Ridenhour overflows confidence. Earlier this season, he gave up three hits during eight scoreless innings in an 8-0 victory over perennial power Wichita State, and after the game, said the Shockers were a program in decline.
Last Wednesday, in the rematch at Wichita State, Ridenhour got the ball again. He would have to back up his words in front of thousands of rowdy Shockers fans — and he did, gaining another win in an 8-3 KU victory with all the pressure on his big right arm.
“I couldn’t do it,” Bob Ridenhour said. “My knees would be shaking so much I’d pass out.”
It goes both ways. Bob played rugby as a young man, something that Lee could never consider doing. But Lee has developed the right demeanor to be a pitcher.
“He has always wanted to be the person that counts, that it depends on,” Bob said. “He’d want to be that person who takes the free throw at the end of the game. Some of it comes from having hemophilia. He’s had to do things he probably shouldn’t be doing. But he says, ‘I’m gonna do it.’”
• • •
Lee Ridenhour would rather be the quarterback slinging the ball around during a 2-minute drill than the free-throw shooter his father mentioned.
“He always wanted to be a quarterback,” Bob said. “That was his dream.”
In the halls at SM West, where the hulking pitching star blended in all too easily, Ridenhour would hear the same suggestion each year when football season came around.
“They’d say, ‘Lee, go out for quarterback this year,’ ” Lee said. “I’d be like, ‘Nah, don’t really want to.’ ”
Lee wanted to, of course. He even tried to convince Bob that he could play wide receiver, giving up on the QB dream. But deep down, Lee knew he couldn’t risk it. Since the second day of his life, when blood tests revealed that he had hemophilia, Lee had become a skilled assessor of risk. Football, with just one concussion or hit in the wrong place, could end his hopes of pitching a baseball at the highest level.
Baseball had been there for Ridenhour all along, even when it seemed he may never be able to live like a normal boy. As a 5-year-old, he suffered a spinal bleed that had his parents worried he would be paralyzed. A catheter was inserted in his chest so that he could easily receive treatments. No wonder Ridenhour’s parents signed him up for piano.

“We lived in fear as he was growing up,” Bob said.
By age 8, Ridenhour had convinced his parents to let him play baseball. He would play with the catheter until he was 12, and he became very self-conscious. Most of his friends didn’t understand what hemophilia was.
“They’d be like, ‘Oh, if you get cut, are you going to bleed to death?’ ” Ridenhour said.
Hemophilia prevents a carrier from healing because the blood clot that forms to heal an injury eventually breaks. When it breaks, the bleeding continues. Hemophilia most often affects a carrier’s joints.
Some children only get treatment when they are injured, but if Ridenhour was going to play baseball competitively, he’d have to do it three times a week.
At age 12, he began administering IV treatments to himself, and the catheter was removed. That transition was crucial for Ridenhour, who would have to learn responsibility. For the rest of his pitching career, he’ll give himself a shot the morning of a start.
Through it all, Ridenhour maintained a fighting spirit.
“For a long time I didn’t tell people,” Ridenhour said, “and it got to the point where I didn’t really care. Someone asked me, ‘Well, if I punched you, what would happen?’ I said, ‘Well, I guess I’d punch you right back.’ I never let it interfere.”
• • •
The Kansas program is having its best season since 2006 — the Jayhawks are 35-18 and 13-11 in the Big 12 entering this weekend’s series against Kansas State — but it’s hard to know what would have happened if Ridenhour hadn’t followed through on his commitment.
Ridenhour was drafted in the 31st round by the Minnesota Twins in the amateur draft last June. He took his decision all the way to the Aug. 15 deadline before opting to enjoy the college experience for at least three years.
“In the minor leagues, if you’re thrown right in the thick of it, chances are you’re not going to make it,” Bob said. “Ninety-five percent aren’t going to make it.”
Lee had come too far to risk flaming out in the minor leagues without taking the time to learn how to get elite-level hitters out. He has done enough of that in the Big 12 to show the KU coaches his ceiling.
“He could be one of the premier arms in the conference,” KU pitching coach Ryan Graves said. “From a mind-set standpoint and competitive standpoint, that stuff’s already there.”
Ridenhour’s mind has become his greatest asset. He’s not bothered by obstacles because he’s already hurdled so many. This weekend, a group of kids from the Ridenhours’ support group, the Midwest Hemophilia Association, are expected to attend one of the KU-K-State games in Lawrence.
“A lot of kids really look up to him,” Bob said. “A lot of them feel … what’s the word … not worthy. They have self-doubts.”
Luckily for Lee Ridenhour, he had an outlet.
“If he didn’t have baseball,” Bob said, “I think he would have been very frustrated. It was his escape from the real world.”