Syracuse, N.Y. — As hard as he tried to keep it bottled up, Abdullah Abraham had to let the anger out somewhere last season.
He picked the closest targets for the venting: his teammates on the Westhill football team.
Abraham, then a junior defensive lineman/linebacker, was in a fight against chronic myeloid leukemia in late summer and early fall. He returned to his team eager to prove he was just another one of the guys, only to be met by peers who treated him like he was made out of glass. They refused to deck him in drills and bring the kind of top-level physicality the sport demands.
So Abraham screamed at his teammates in an attempt to get them riled up enough to hit him, targeting them for insults the details of which he declined to repeat.
“It was frustrating at times, seeing they didn’t want to go full power on me,” he said. “I’d say, ‘Hit me.' I’d push them, try to get them mad.”
Their response wasn’t what Abraham had hoped.
“It was funny when he tried going off on other teammates. I just sat there and laughed,” said fellow Warriors lineman Eric Houck.
In a sense, Abraham was a victim of his own personality. His friends knew there was just no way he had a drop of ill will in his body. But more tellingly, the Warriors soon started pounding away at Abraham.
Abraham worked his way back to full health, and once he was cleared to play he deserved to be blocked and tackled just like anyone else. And this summer, he’s in full training mode for a senior season where there’ll be no holding back in practices or games.
“I’m feeling perfect,” he recently said. “I feel great. I’m recovering every day.”
Because of that optimism and perseverance, Abraham has been named syracuse.com’s Comeback Player of the Year for the 2019-20 season.
It’s been nearly a year since Abraham was diagnosed with cancer. He initially had a sore throat, but after learning it wasn’t strep throat or the flu, he went to Upstate Golisano Hospital for a series of blood tests.
He was diagnosed with had chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), a type of cancer that begins in the blood-forming cells of the bone marrow. CML also enlarges the spleen, which was the case for Abraham.
“I did feel down. I felt like the world was crushing on me,” he said of his initial reaction.
But Abraham was quick to pivot to boost the spirit of others. Moneer Abraham, Abdullah’s cousin and a Westhill teammate, recalls their grandmother crying at the news of the diagnosis. The first one to console her was Abdullah.
“He was the one who said keep your head up,” Moneer said. “He was the one to reassure everyone.”
The upbeat attitude wasn’t just a facade. Abdullah said that’s just the way he’s learned to look at life.
“Ever since I was a young age, my parents taught me everything happens for a reason,” he said. “They told me it was a test from God. That helped a lot. There was a reason I got it. I had a really big support group.”
Abraham got the good news early that this type of cancer was treatable. In his case, treatment primarily consisted of taking one pill (Sprycel) every day for 18 months. He recovered in time to get clearance and play a full season for the Warriors. His only precaution was a rib-cage pad that protected his spleen.
“At first, I wasn’t really positive because I didn’t know what was going on,” he said of his recovery. “As the months went on I saw I was making progress, it was a big relief. It doesn’t stop me from doing what I usually do before I was diagnosed.”
Westhill coach Adam Griffo resisted Abraham’s pleas to play special teams and offense but beyond that turned him loose as a defensive regular.
“There’d be times when he’d be mad at me because I kept him out of things. I just didn’t want him taking extra hits,” Griffo said. “He’s just a strong-willed kid.”
Abraham’s teammates marveled at his refusal to show any self pity or wonder why this had happened to him.
“Even through everything he’s going through, he never seemed down. We just all see him as that kid who has the most energy and he picks everybody up,” Houck said.
“When it was his time in need, he was putting everyone before him,” Moneer Abraham said. “That was the thing. It really never fazed him. He just always kept his head up. I feel like he’s always been that guy. He’s always been the one to bring life to any situation. You could never be sad around him. He’s really one of a kind.”
Abraham said he’s been doing pretty much everything he’d normally do this summer even if he wasn’t a recovering cancer patient. He recently got a job at McDonalds. He’s hit his home gym to put about 25 pounds back on, up to 175.
“I’m doing what a normal kid would do every other day,” he said.
He said he’ll have another bone marrow biopsy in August to double-check that everything is still good.
That, in Abraham’s world, will be just a formality.
“I’m 100% sure when we do the biopsy, it will come back a great number,” he said. “I’d love to motivate other people, kids who are in my shoes, one day. I’m showing a lot of positivity. Don’t get down.”
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Lindsay Kramer is a reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard and syracuse.com. Got a comment or idea for a story? He can be reached via email at LKramer@Syracuse.com.
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