Campbell County football coach Justin Price is Sports Awards Courage Award recipient

Justin and Traci Price watched as their 13-month-old son Jack crawled on the floor, his legs and his arms finally strong enough to support his body.

When they brought him home from East Tennessee Children’s Hospital in March, after more than six months of treatment for leukemia, his arms and legs were so weak he couldn’t hold them up on his own. 

But now the Prices' lives could start approaching a level of normalcy they had envisioned when Jack was first born. After Jack’s diagnosis of B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia in August, normal had been chemotherapy treatments and blood tests, overnight stays at the hospital and daily prayers. 

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And for Justin, who is the football coach at Campbell County, Jack’s diagnosis came a week before the high school football season started. 

Justin is the recipient of the Courage Award, which he will receive at the fourth annual Knox News Sports Awards presented by Farm Bureau Health Plans on Thursday. The 6 p.m. show at sportsawards.knoxnews.com is a virtual, on-demand show. 

He coached the entire season, guiding Campbell County to a 4-6 record, driving from football practice to East Tennessee Children’s Hospital every evening to see Jack, who was in the middle of a 25-week in-patient treatment.

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Jack has been in remission since November. He is in his maintenance phase of treatment, which will last until August 2021, the Prices said. Jack takes chemotherapy orally every day and will do so until the maintenance phase is over. 

'Everything's so out of control'

Justin’s first drive from Campbell County to East Tennessee Children’s Hospital was on Aug. 15, after Traci took Jack to his 5-month-old check up. 

One blood test became two. And what looked like a normal Thursday turned into Jack being admitted into the emergency room and then to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. The Prices were told Jack’s white blood cell count was so high he was at risk for suffering a stroke or organ failure. Jack was diagnosed with leukemia that day. 

“Everything’s so out of control,” Traci said. "You need someone to tell you what the next step is."

“Almost a numb feeling comes over you because there’s so much confusion, there’s so much of an overwhelming feeling that you really don’t know what to do next,” Justin said. 

They spent the night on a small pullout couch in Jack’s hospital room. 

At one point, Justin woke up and saw Traci writing down Bible verses from Psalms. She placed those pieces of paper inside Jack’s crib. 

“When I opened my Bible and the marker is (in Psalms), all of those words started ringing even more true,” Traci said. “We wanted to proclaim those words over Jack’s life because that’s the only thing that will save him, whether that’s saved here, on Earth, or saved on the other side.”

Coaching during the season

The week of Campbell County’s first game, which was against Cocke County, the coaching staff prepared as if Justin, who calls the offense’s plays, was going to be there. His twin brother, Matt, who’s the defensive coordinator, and outside linebackers coach Chris Honeycutt, came up with a game plan. 

Justin arrived two hours before the game started, coming straight from the hospital. He told the coaching staff he would be calling the plays. 

“Do you not trust us?” Honeycutt asked him. 

“It was kind of a light-hearted moment there, given the week,” Matt said. “Justin just enjoys that so much and it was nice to have that.” 

Campbell County’s stands were filled with spectators wearing orange shirts, the color for leukemia awareness,  that read “To God be the Glory” with an orange ribbon. The student section had a giant sign with “Team Jack” written on it. 

“The overwhelming support we were receiving gave us so much comfort,” Justin said. “The decision to be around those people, and the comfort we were receiving from the entire community was something we wanted to be a part of.” 

Justin organized his time throughout the season, running practices and then driving 35 minutes to the hospital to meet Traci, who was  their other two sons, Reese, 5, and Luke, 2. 

“You could tell on certain days, when he got good news, it was easier to handle that,” Matt said. “But he always tried to keep it in his personal life, and when he was at football, try to focus on that.” 

Coaches and teams in the Knoxville area wore orange ribbons during the season. Before games, coaches would present Justin with gifts for Jack. 

“It brought our family so much comfort to know that the profession that we’re in, high school sports, we’re all competitive, and we want to win, but, in the end, football’s much bigger than what that scoreboard says,” Justin said.