In hard game of life, this Clemson fan never quits

HICKORY TAVERN — This was his game.

Four-hundred miles and two states away, this was Louis' victory.

Nine days ago, Dabo Swinney, the man unexpectedly put in charge of Clemson's football program, halted a midweek practice and gathered his team.

Swinney asked the players to make a circle and take a knee. He then invited Louis Owens and his parents to join the Tigers.

The players parted, allowing Louis — all 4 feet and 57 pounds of him — to step inside the ring of modern-day gladiators.

There, Swinney shared Louis' story. It's one that should be celebrated and remembered.

Swinney implored his team to recognize greatness, even if size is a seemingly betraying force in measuring it.

Standing by the players, Louis comes up somewhere around their waists. As they kneel, they still rise above the head that sprouts from his bright orange Clemson jacket.

The scene has the team's attention. This kid's had it rough, they think. We're fortunate to be here, perhaps some consider.

But what stuns and stumps the Tigers? What brings them to the brink of weeping?

The kid isn't a kid.

Swinney tells his team that Louis is 29 years old.

Silence follows. Eyes fix on Louis.

The players look at him twice, three times. One more time. He's 10 years older than many of them.

We all have our battles, sure.

But how many are measured in decades?

Last-ditch battle

Doctors told Louis' parents, Dianne and Louis Sr., that their son would die within a couple of months.

That was in 1981.

Louis will be 30 in January.

Now that's a win. That's victory.

At 15 months, doctors discovered Louis had a brain tumor. After 27 radiation treatments and 13 months of chemotherapy, it was gone.

A year later, it returned — more ferocious than ever.

That's when the family was told Louis had two or three months, tops.

"He wasn't supposed to make it to 3 years old," Louis Sr. said.

A pediatric oncologist in Columbia recommended halting the treatments that were turning Louis' body into a wasteland. It was too physically harsh, he reasoned. It was pointless, he said.

Another, however, said to press on. He said there was hope.

The Owenses made the difficult decision to give their weakened son one final round of treatment to improve.

And, well, the little guy had big fight in him, a flair for the miraculously dramatic.

Down to that last treatment, his body began to respond. The chemotherapy and radiation ridded him of the tumor. But all those chemicals left a mess in their wake.

Brain cells were killed. Growth was stunted. He hears a little bit in one ear. He hears nothing in the other. Half of his face is paralyzed, leaving him with a crooked smile. He thinks and communicates like he's 7 or 8 years old. The list goes on.

But he is alive.

Another roll of dice

If only it were that easy. Winning has a shelf life, unfortunately.

For almost three decades, Louis lived the best life he could. His parents tirelessly tended to him as his best friends. He went to school, earning a 1999 diploma and a class ring from Laurens High School that he proudly displays on his hand.

Louis' mom says he can't drive a car; he taps on her leg to remind her he can "drive" a bike.

He's brightened family members' lives. He's made friends (the kids in ROTC loved him).

And he's rarely missed a Clemson football game on TV, although he's still waiting to see one in person. (His dad's work schedule with the railroad always was a hang-up, but he recently retired.)

The Owenses' lives have had their added challenges, no doubt, but they've had their Little Louis.

Then, life's cruelty returned. Another test for those who thought they had passed for good.

On July 9, Louis was diagnosed with Myelodysplastic Syndrome, an ailment that typically leads to leukemia.

The maliciousness of that day, the family confides, was familiar and haunting. It still hurts.

In several hours of talking about Louis' life last Saturday, and as she sat on the floor beside her son, this was the only time Dianne visibly fought back emotion.

Because the fear the family thought it left in the 1980s is back.

The life-expectancy clock Louis had broken has been reset.

"Now it's like we're waiting for a time bomb," Dianne said. "The cells are in his bone marrow. We're just waiting for the MDS to turn into, one day, full-blown leukemia."

The family also is awaiting test results from the Medical University of South Carolina to see if Louis has a lung disease that affects just five in a million people.

Without question, these are trying days.

"We've had a real hard time with this," Dianne said. "We had started to think Louis would outlive us."

Dedication

Amid that huddle on the practice field, Swinney has a question for Louis.

"Would it be OK if we dedicated this week's game to you?" Swinney asks him.

Unable to find a way to convey his thoughts and feelings, Louis just sort of bobs his head around. His mom, moved, steps in to say she knows it doesn't seem that way, but Louis is thrilled.

He's ecstatic on the inside, she says.

And, in that moment, a woman who says she rarely speaks up in audiences suddenly has a voice. She tells the Tigers that her son's room has more orange and purple than any place on campus. (Louis is such a fan that his hearing aid is in the shape of a 'C' and in school colors.)

"(The coaches) had just told us they thought we were a resilient bunch, and then Louis came out and showed us the real embodiment of resilient," said senior receiver Aaron Kelly, who just last month helped get teammates to join the National Bone Marrow Registry.

The meeting breaks down, and the family is invited to stick around to watch practice.

After a while, Swinney comes over and spends 10 or 15 more minutes with the family.

This is a man coaching for his professional life? This is a guy who could be unemployed with basically any kind of a misstep?

"He acted like he had all day," Dianne said. "That blew us away."

Swinney presented Louis with an orange game jersey that No. 20, freshman Brandon Maye, donated as a gift.

Maye, Kelly and some other Tigers took turns coming over, posing for pictures and signing a football for Louis.

He left for home with memories of an afternoon with his heroes. Right up there with the time he met country star Alan Jackson and NASCAR legend Bill Elliott, his other favorites.

But this was different. Forget signatures. Forget a jersey. Forget a ball.

Louis had been given a game. On Saturday, Clemson was playing at Virginia, with Louis in mind.

The big game

Days earlier, this game didn't mean a thing to you. Didn't make the slightest blip on your college football radar.

Clemson and Virginia? A meeting of two .500 teams that have stumbled around the majority of this fall? What else is on?

But then, by chance, you heard about Louis. Then you saw his picture, standing by Kelly's waist and next to a squatting, smiling running back C.J. Spiller.

Then you learned this was his game.

Then you trekked to a part of Laurens County few see, to a town that has a made-up-sounding name. Then you entered the warm home of a genuinely nice family with a story to share. And a game to watch.

And, as the minutes ticked by in a living room and on a football field, you found yourself scooting to the edge of a recliner. Your hands sweated. Your heartbeat picked up. Your whole body tensed.

Virginia couldn't win this game, right? The Tigers had said they would play for Louis. They had to win.

The game's only touchdown, a pass from Spiller on a trick play, elicited a big smile from Spiller — and a knowing handshake between Big Louis and Little Louis.

"You have to appreciate what you have," Spiller said, when asked about Louis' visit. "All us guys have been very blessed to be able to play the game we love."

As things progressed, with no winner becoming evident, you prepared yourself for reality's bite. Even as you looked at the intent way Little Louis watched the TV, wearing that No. 20 jersey, which was so long it went past his knees.

You had to tell yourself that life is, in some ways, about heartbreak. The family to your left understood that all too well.

Virginia had so many chances to steal away the narrow 10-3 lead Clemson clung to for most of the afternoon.

A late interception set up a field goal to put the game away.

"Sometimes," Kelly said, "when you see people who are just happy to wake up in the morning, it's inspiring."

Tigers 13, Cavaliers 3.

The future

Difficult as it is for her to say, difficult as it is for you to hear, Dianne talks about the family facing the idea of LWL. That's Life Without Louis.

It breaks your heart.

But should it?

For 30 years, his life has stood as a testament of so many things that lift you higher than anything else possibly could. And, even in LWL, those ideas will carry on to permeate hearts and souls.

Chances are, Louis' legacy — way bigger than his most modest 4-foot, 57-pound frame — will mean more than most. That brings a smile to your face.

Little Louis Owens is a victor worth hailing.

Four-hundred miles and two states away, it's all his.

Reach Travis Haney at thaney@postandcourier.com.