University football player ends career early to help fiancée battle leukaemia

Ben Pike, a defensive end at the University of Toledo, is choosing the love for a woman over the love of the game.

Pike is hanging up his spikes a year early — the 22-year-old player still had one final season of eligibility — to help his fiancée, Ashlee Barrett, battle leukaemia.

"When I meet the love of my life, ask her to marry me and a couple months later, she gets diagnosed with cancer, you see how little and insignificant your other problems were," Pike told the News-Herald. "When you see a person that you love lying on a bed fighting for her life, school, football, all that doesn't matter. All that matters is making sure she gets better."

Pike proposed to Barrett, a former Toledo basketball player, on the White House driveway during his team's 2011 trip to the Military Bowl. They are planning a June 2013 wedding.

"I know in some people's terms, he's giving up things," Pike's mother, Becky, told the Plain Dealer. "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 to win a battle for life instead of winning on the football field."

Barrett, 23, had already graduated and was teaching the second grade in her hometown of St. Louis when she was diagnosed with leukaemia last spring.

This January, Barrett learned that, after a short remission, the cancer returned. Eventually, she'll need a stem-cell transplant. Fortunately, two perfect-match donors have already been found.

"We talked last weekend and we both decided the best thing I could do for both of us is finish up and graduate this spring," Pike told the News-Herald. "So that's what I'm going to do, finish school and balance time to see her and support her while she's going through this."

The couple still plans to wed on June 15th.

Toledo coach Matt Campbell told the Plain Dealer that he's proud of the player who clearly has his priorities in order:

"You see Ben almost sacrifice everything and give it up for her and be by her side," Campbell said. "That was such an inspiration for us because in football and we talk winning and we're always talking about toughness. But what we learned was sacrifice. We were seeing this unfold right before our eyes. I think the sacrifices they were making for each other, and watching the power of Ashlee fight this with such a great attitude, was truly inspirational for each and every one of us. I think it really touched our entire football team."

Pike insisted he isn't done with football for good. When he graduates, he'll be certified to teach grades 7 through 12 — and he plans to coach in the future.