As Keith Henry watched one person after another file into the auditorium inside the Clemson Madren Center, tears welled in his eyes.
“I’m full today,” Henry said before pausing to collect himself.
With the help of his son, Clemson defensive end K.J. Henry, and some of K.J.’s teammates, those people were there for Keith. The elder Henry has been dealing with chronic kidney disease for years and recently found out he will need a kidney transplant.
K.J. took to Twitter early last month to publicly reveal his father’s condition. Soon thereafter, he and some of his teammates came up with a way to help cover the cost of Keith’s medical bills: an autograph fundraiser. K.J. publicized the event via social media a week ago, which caught his mother, Nicole, by surprise.
“I didn’t even know about this event. K.J. did it on his own,” said Nicole, who’s been married to Keith for 27 years. “I was in the grocery store and I just happened to be in line checking out and said, ‘Let me look through Twitter.’ I saw it, and I busted out in the grocery store crying.”
The emotion carried over to Sunday afternoon when hundreds of fans showed up at the Madren Center in support of the cause. Each one bought a $100 ticket in exchange for having posters, helmets, footballs and other memorabilia signed by K.J. and other prominent Clemson players, including offensive lineman Jordan McFadden, defensive lineman Tyler Davis, running back Will Shipley and freshman quarterback Cade Klubnik.
“Blessed to be at a university like this and able to have a platform where we can help him,” K.J. said. “Really all the people around here have been great about it.”
The turnout was in the hundreds. The line for autographs snaked up multiple tiers of stairs and out of the auditorium’s doors. As they finished going through the autograph line, some fans stopped to chat with Keith and Nicole, who looked on from a distance. Many offered up well wishes.
“It’s a blessing,” Keith said. “I look at life a little bit different now. You take things for granted, and I thank the Lord every day for giving me another day.”
Football runs in the Henry bloodlines, which is how Keith’s kidney issues were initially discovered. Keith described himself as “semi” retired at this point, but he was a college football coach for more than three decades. That included an 11-year stint as an assistant at Wake Forest under then-head coach Jim Grobe, whom Nicole credited for encouraging her husband and the rest of his staff to undergo annual physicals.
“He often would run them out of the office. Go get your yearly, know your numbers, know your blood type. He really campaigned to them,” Nicole said. “We’re thankful for that because Keith started having checkups, and they were noticing his blood pressure being high. From there, it started looking like his kidney levels were high. And he got referred to a kidney doctor. So we were told years ago it was inevitable.”
Keith said he got word last summer that he would need a new kidney after learning his condition had deteriorated to pre-dialysis levels. After passing a series of tests that took months to complete but ultimately deemed him fit enough to become a recipient, Keith was put on a transplant waiting list.
It could be anywhere from six months to five years before he finds a match, Keith said his surgeon told him.
“You get up every morning, and you know it’s out there,” Keith said. “You know the kidney is on the shelf somewhere. … It’s just when are you going to get that call?”
The medical bills are also piling up. Keith said he doesn’t know exactly how much all of the consultations and the transplant procedure itself will end up costing, but even a brief doctor’s visit is setting him back thousands. He estimated his health insurance will cover 65% of the tab.
The hope for Keith and his family is that Sunday’s fundraiser will help take care of the rest. Every dollar made will be put in a fund for Keith formed in partnership with Help Hope Live, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising money for medical bills.
According to the organization’s official website, Keith’s transplant campaign has a goal of $95,000. As of Sunday, more than $73,000 had been raised.
“I’m calling it Team Henry because we’re going to be a team no matter what,” Nicole said. “The way I metaphorically put it because football is our world, a season is a season no matter what season it is. This is our season.”
While Keith and his family anxiously await that call, they also see the situation as an opportunity to bring awareness to the disease. Nicole has already lost a brother-in-law to kidney failure in large part because she said he lived most of his life unaware of his condition.
“If I want to give anybody advice, get your blood checked and know your blood type because if I had never hit this thing head on, I wouldn’t have known where we’re at today,” Keith said.
Now that Keith knows the extent of what he’s dealing with, he couldn’t help but look around a few more times at a room filling up for him, thankful for the support he’s receiving from a couple of different families.
“The Clemson family has been freaking great,” Keith said. “I can’t express how much those guys have embedded in me and embedded my son. We love those guys to death.”
Lead photo courtesy of Twitter/K.J. Henry
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