Nearly eight years ago, Raishaun Provo said he was unsure if he would ever be able to play football again.
In fact, he said there were times when his family was not even sure if he would survive a mysterious virus that made him lose a dangerous amount of his body weight, and even after being cured of the illness, said he was afraid he would never walk again.
Now, the high school senior running back from Pickering, Ont. is preparing to suit up for the Carleton Ravens football team this coming season.
Provo’s illness started in March 2007 at the young age of 10, when he said one day he was unable to eat food without throwing it back up soon after.
He said when his family took him to the hospital, the doctors did not know at first what virus he was suffering from.
Provo said after about six weeks, the doctors diagnosed him with an intestinal disease called Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), a virus he described as one that eats away at the inside of your stomach and caused his inability to ingest food without quickly throwing it back up.
“There were a lot of moments when we really weren’t sure if I was going to pull through, but with the grace of God and my family, I did make it through,” he said.
After the doctors’ H. pylori diagnosis proved to be correct, Provo was eventually released from the hospital, but he still had a long way to go.
He said he went into the hospital weighing around 115 pounds and left the hospital at under 75 pounds.
As a result, Provo said he needed to go through intense physical therapy to help him walk, run, and hopefully play football again.
“It was a gruesome few months of physio. The first day when they told me to get out of my wheelchair and I wasn’t able to do it, I broke down and started crying,” he said. “But the doctors pushed me through it and helped me so much. If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know if I’d still be playing football right now.”
However, Provo not only re-learned how to walk and run, but he said the whole experience has also played a big part in his blossoming football career, evidenced by his recent commitment to Carleton’s football program for this fall.
“Before the whole situation happened, I was a very cocky child and I believed I was on top of the world,” he said. “I learned from it to always be humble, not take anything for granted, and to be the best I can be, but also to not think I’m the greatest.”
Provo said he chose to commit to Carleton for both its on-field football program and the university’s academics.
“The reason why I chose the Ravens was because I already have a great relationship with coach Steve, coach Ryan, and coach J.P. from playing for them before and they pushed me to come play for them,” he said.
Steve Sumarah, Carleton’s head coach, said he got to know Provo well from coaching him at a Team Ontario camp in Texas last summer, and said he is thrilled to add a player of Provo’s calibre to next year’s team.
“We really started to develop a relationship with him when he impressed us down in Texas,” Sumarah said. “We felt we needed a top running back, and we’re really excited that Raishaun is on board.”
Sumarah said Provo would have a chance to be the Ravens’ starter when the team hits the field in their 2014 season this fall, but said it all depends on how he and the other running backs perform at training camp and push each other to get better.
“We’d like to think we have some good competition at running back this year,” Sumarah said. “He is going to be someone who will put a lot of pressure on the backs that we have, and we believe he’s going to make us a better team.”
Provo said the university is also a perfect fit for studying what he wants to get into in the future.
“I’ve applied for a bachelor of arts in psychology, but in my second year I want to switch into more interdisciplinary studies because I want to be a sports psychologist in the future,” he said. “What I really want to learn is figuring out why we do certain things in sports.”
Provo said he is fortunate because he gets to chase his dreams of playing football and becoming a sports psychologist despite the health trouble nearly eight years ago that made him scared he would never get to do so.
He said he learned one important lesson in particular from going through his health scare and physical therapy that has long resonated with him as he gets ready for the next chapter of his life at Carleton.
“It’s made me believe no matter how low you are, you can always build yourself back up because once you’ve hit the ground, there’s nowhere to go but up,” he said. “No matter how much you fall, you can’t stop believing in yourself because you can always get better.”
