BLOOMINGTON — The mother of an Indiana University football player who is battling COVID-19 wants everyone to realize the importance of wearing a mask and practicing social distancing.
Brady Feeney is a freshman offensive lineman for the Hoosiers from St. Louis. His mother, Debbie Rucker, took to Facebook Monday with a plea: Take COVID-19 seriously, wear a mask and exercise social distancing.
Feeney is battling the virus as questions remain on whether the college football season will be played this fall. The Big Ten announced it plans on playing a conference-only schedule this fall.
With her son's permission, Rucker shared his story:
My son was negative when he got tested at the beginning of volunteer workouts. Within three weeks he and multiple others tested positive. His university has done everything right by shutting down workouts and retesting the whole team.
Unfortunately this virus hit my son very hard compared to most of his teammates. Here was a kid in perfect health, great physical condition and due to the virus ended up going to the ER because of breathing issues.
After 14 days of hell battling the horrible virus, his school did additional testing on all those that were positive. My son even received extra tests because he was one of the worst cases. Now we are dealing with possible heart issues!
He is still experiencing additional symptoms and his blood work is indicating additional problems. Bottom line, even if your son’s schools do everything right to protect them, they CAN’T PROTECT THEM!!
I pray my son recovers from this horrible virus and can lead a healthy normal life!! Football does not really matter when your child’s health is in jeopardy!! Think about it!!! My heart is hurting and I pray for all of these kids and for the people making the decisions about the season!!!
Please protect all of those around you and please wear a mask!!! Thank you for listening!!
Message from Debbis Rucker, mother of IU football player Brady Feeney
This article was written by Tom Maccabe for WRTV.
