Toledo Football Player To Forgo Last Year Of Eligibility To Be With Sick Fiancee

Photo Credit: The BladeA football player at the University of Toledo who has been playing the sport since he was a kid told his coach that he will forgo his last eligible season so he could be at his fiancee’s side while she undergoes treatment for leukemia, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported.

Ben Pike, 22, a 6 foot, 3-inch 260-pound defensive lineman who is coming off his best season and was likely to start next year, learned in January that leukemia returned to his fiancée Ashlee Barrett, the report said.

“I know in some people’s terms, he’s giving up things,” Becky Pike, Ben’s mother, told the paper. “But he’s really not giving up. He’s not giving up anything. He’s really fighting for life. And he’s just turned his forces to he’s going so win a battle for life instead of winning on the football field.”

The attraction between the two appeared to be immediate. They met during a bible study class. Barrett, herself a basketball player at Toledo, was taken by Pike’s confidence when he would discuss various topics in class, the report said. Pike couldn’t help but notice the pretty blonde’s energy.

They began dating and fell in love. Pike took Barrett to Washington, D.C., in December 2011 and proposed, the paper reported. He somehow managed to talk White House security guards into giving them clearance so he could pop the question on the main driveway leading to the White House. They set the date for the summer of 2013.

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