Something felt off. His chest was in pain, and his breathing was a struggle. Never having experienced something quite like this before, he figured he should pay a visit to his doctor. After some initial tests and screenings, the doctors believed that he had cancer. He was put through a couple more tests that confirmed doctors’ suspicions and yielded the results that nobody wants to hear.
“I’ve always been pretty healthy,” Darren Evans Jr. said. “So just to go through something as big as this, you know, you hear that cancer word, and it just can be scary.”
Evans, a 2007 graduate from Warren Central High School, has now been dealing with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma for a month. Shortly after the initial shock of the diagnosis, though, Evans said he turned his mindset to positivity and started looking toward how to beat the disease.
Since he received his diagnosis, he has been getting chemotherapy treatments every three weeks. He has already been through two sessions. Although Evans described these sessions as “not an overly greuling” process, he did have a hard time with the first one after having a reaction to one of the medications.
“My first session was a really long one,” he said. “I was there for a good 10 hours that day.”
His second treatment went a bit smoother. It lasted close to six hours, and he did not react poorly to the medication. After these treatments, though, Evans has felt drained of energy and appetite, despite typically feeling the opposite way in his everyday life.
Despite these setbacks, Evans has continued to try and recover in the best ways that he can. Lifting weights again has been a big help for him, as he attempts to lose weight that he gained in the time leading up to his diagnosis.
Outside of lifting, Evans has also become a big family man. Being in the condition he is in has given him more opportunities to be with his family. When he is at home, he tries to do everything he can to make things easier for his wife and their three children. Evans’ youngest son, Dru, is in daycare, and he said getting to pick him up every day is “a highlight” of his day.
Evans’ own father, Darren Evans Sr., said he remembers a time when he was talking to his son about fatherhood. Evans Jr. had told his dad that he pulled the best parts out of all the male figures in his life and decided to concentrate on those parts with his kids.
“I think he’s a great dad, and I think his kids would tell you that,” Evans Sr. said.
Throughout Evans’ time of having cancer, he has received an incredible amount of support from friends and family. One of those people supporting him is Warren Central football coach and 2013 graduate Dwayne Brown, who experienced the same disease as Evans. Brown has reached out to Evans many times offering his support for him while he is going through the treatment process.
“He has asked a ton of great questions,” Brown said. “It [has] been cool to share my knowledge with somebody I looked up to as a kid.”
Support from Brown was the beginning of support from the Warren Central community, though. As Evans came up through Warren Township, he felt as if it was the best place to be for himself. He played multiple seasons on the varsity football team, helping lead them to four straight state championships from 2003 to 2006. Playing at Warren helped him earn an athletic scholarship to Virginia Tech.
With the Hokies, he had a couple decent seasons, including winning Most Valuable Player in the 2009 Orange Bowl and setting a record for single-game rushing yards.
These accomplishments helped him to the NFL where he had a short career as an undrafted free agent for the Indianapolis Colts, and then the Tennessee Titans.
This drive to keep going in his football career has now been seen off the field by others since he was struck with this disease. He and his entire support system knew from the moment he was diagnosed that he would not let it get the best of him.
“I knew no matter what it was, Darren was going to turn it around,” Evans Sr. said hopefully.
According to Evans Sr., his son was one of the hardest-working kids in the classroom and on the football field while at Warren. He took that same approach with him to Virginia Tech and into his everyday life.
“He tries not to let anybody outwork him,” he said of his son.
Especially not cancer.