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Syracuse, N.Y. — Let’s go back two years, to the second week in a hellish cycle of chemotherapy with a PICC line dripping poison into their son’s right arm. Only then can the joy Brad and Monica Culpepper felt watching their son deliver one of the best moments in this young college football season be fully understood.
We think we know the Rex Culpepper story, how he captured our love by tossing a touchdown during Syracuse’s spring game a month after going public with his testicular cancer diagnosis, and how he again minted a moment to remember with a 69-yard touchdown pass Saturday afternoon at Pittsburgh.
With little going right for Syracuse amid an 0-2 start, Culpepper, a cancer survivor, is the easiest thing to like about this team. He’s the backup quarterback who chose to stay at school for five years while others are quick to bolt for playing time somewhere else. He’s the guy out there having the most fun, practicing in cut-off pant legs, lifting weights in cut-off collared shirts and dropping dimes with hair flowing from the back of his helmet, reminding TV announcers of a famous long-locked quarterback at Clemson.
But Culpepper didn’t grow out his hair to be like Trevor Lawrence. It was much more personal than that. Culpepper hasn’t cut his hair since June 1, 2018, the day he rang the bell and received a clean bill of health at a hospital in Florida.
Not everybody knows that, just as they might not know why one of the 100 tally marks tattooed on his side — one slash for every hour of chemo — is inked in red.
It’s to remember that moment his face turned blue early in the second week of chemo, when he curled up in the fetal position thinking he might die just three days after throwing that touchdown in the spring game.
His computer fell out of his lap right as the drug entered his body. He tried reaching for the IV bag with a shaky arm to pull the line out, believing his heart and lungs would rather stop functioning than continue pumping poison into his body.
Culpepper had an allergic reaction to a mixing agent used in the chemo. His mother, Monica, was with him in Syracuse that day, when a nurse on a floor above heard her scream and the crash cart rumbled down the hallway as the alarm system blared.
We need help! We need help! We need help!
She called her husband in Florida: “We might lose our son.”
“I thought my life was out of my control at this point,” Culpepper told his coaches, teammates and a room full of SU administrators and supporters while accepting an award for his courage in a difficult year.
“I kept telling myself, ‘Stay here. Stay here.’ We didn’t know if I was going to make it through that."
Culpepper continued treatment the next day with a different mixing agent. He inspired others in the hospital who remembered seeing him on TV tossing a touchdown in a scrimmage: Keep going.
Since rejoining the team ahead of the 10-win season in 2018, Culpepper has mostly been a backup quarterback. There’s now reason to think he will play a larger role and become more than a feel-good story. The staff designed plays for him, and coach Dino Babers said after the 21-10 loss at Pitt that Culpepper needed to be involved to help an offense struggling to move the ball and score points.
It’s the dream manifesting itself in ways Culpepper hoped it would by deciding to stick it out at Syracuse instead of leaving to finish out his career at a school in Ohio playing under his old high school coach.
He stayed out of a love of team and out of a budding connection to Central New York. His story resonated with cancer patients across town who approached him at restaurants and Wegmans. Before Covid hit, he was shuttling down the Thruway to Rochester as part of an internship with an ad firm. He has become close with former SU players from the Schwartzwalder era.
Why leave to go play football for six months? Life is bigger than that, his parents said.
Culpepper never took the easy way out. He’s the guy who timed four PICC line surgeries around practice so the tube wasn’t inserted into his throwing arm until after spring ball.
He’s the guy doing schoolwork on his laptop in the middle of chemo and graduating magna cum laude from SU’s prestigious communications schools.
He’s the guy showing up for the team’s most grueling workout at 5:30 in the morning with the freshman class, then popping his trunk after it’s over to hand them all water bottles.
“We always taught him perseverance pays and that rough situations make really strong men on the other side,” his parents said.
So this is why seeing their son running down the field, elated after the first touchdown of the season, was the best part of their day.
They know how long and rough the road to that moment has been.
They know, too, no matter what happens from here, the hardest day in Culpepper’s journey is behind him.
Hopefully, they said, the story is not done.
More Syracuse football:
Syracuse football opens as 8-point home underdog against rebuilding Georgia Tech
After Pitt dunked on Syracuse, can any game be considered a lay-up?
Axe: Panther Problems: Syracuse football loses to Pittsburgh 21-10
Babers on late-game decisions against Pitt: Potential field goal was ‘last big opportunity’
Babers: Syracuse offense in a drought. Are changes coming?
Syracuse offense is a trainwreck near the red zone (instant takeaways)
Axe: The 40 biggest Syracuse games in Carrier Dome history
Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact Nate Mink anytime: 315-430-8253 | Email | Twitter
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