Former Mizzou Tiger rediscovers football passion after life-threatening diagnosis
In the height of his career, Chance Luper received the news that he would never play football again.
The former wide receiver’s dream of playing the sport he had been immersed in his entire life was suddenly out of reach.
Growing up, Luper was constantly surrounded by football. His dad Curtis Luper was a former collegiate running back, playing for Oklahoma State from 1984-1987 and Stephen F. Austin in 1993.
After his playing career, Curtis Luper coached at Stephen F. Austin (1995-97); McKinney (Texas) High School (1998); Texas A&M-Commerce (1999-2001); New Mexico (2002-04); Oklahoma State (2005-08); Auburn (2009-12); TCU (2013-19); and Missouri (2020-present).
Chance Luper spent a lot of his time around the 2010 Auburn team, which won the national championship thanks in large part to Heisman Trophy winner and 2015 NFL MVP Cam Newton.
”I think the first time I really felt like I was going to be a football player was in Alabama, when we were at Auburn,” Luper said. “Just being around those guys and seeing how they loved each other as brothers and how much they loved the game, it kind of rubbed off on me.”
Luper was always undersized, and even though he longed to play football, he leaned toward basketball. It wasn’t until the summer before his junior year of high school that he decided to take football more seriously.
Luper grew to 6-foot-1 and put on extra weight to prepare for the season. He hauled in 39 passes for 827 yards and earned all-district honors during his junior year at Fort Worth Christian High School in North Richland Hills, Texas.
His recruitment picked up, and he garnered offers from 15 Division programs. Ahead of his senior season, he committed to Boise State.
”I fell in love with Boise State,” he said. “They had a great coaching staff, and it clicked for me.”
At the time of Chance’s recruitment, Curtis Luper was the running backs coach at TCU and did not let Chance commit to the Horned Frogs. The coach said it was important for his son experience the recruiting process without his influence.
Chance Luper became a three-star recruit and was targeted by numerous Power Five programs as a senior. He ultimately decommitted from Boise State due to changes in the coaching staff there and decided to test his options elsewhere.
While this was happening, Curtis Luper’s tenure with TCU came to an end, and he wound up taking a job at Missouri — under coach Eli Drinkwitz — as the Tigers’ running backs coach.
Chance Luper’s second attempt at finding a collegiate home was far different from the first. He repeatedly encountered the same obstacle — his father’s presence at Mizzou.
”A lot of schools didn’t offer me because of my dad,” Luper said. “When Missouri offered and I made it up there, I knew that’s where I wanted to play.”
Luper experienced growing pains as a freshman at Mizzou. In his first year with the program, he had just one reception for 69 yards in MU’s 45-41 win over LSU on Oct. 10, 2020.
Luper played his way onto the first team as a sophomore and started the team’s initial games in 2021. But on Oct. 16, 2021, against Texas A&M, he suffered a Grade 1 MCL tear in a 35-14 Tigers loss — a game in which Luper logged a season-high six receptions.
He wound up having to redshirt the season and began preparing for 2022. He was expected to start that season alongside the likes of then-sophomore Dominic Lovett and then-freshman Luther Burden III.
Nothing could have prepared Luper for what was going to happen next.
During fall camp, he started noticing something was wrong. The first sign was when Luper began experiencing difficulties running due to an irregular heartbeat.
”I would wake up in the morning with full-body soreness,” he said, “not the typical football soreness, but a different kind of soreness.”
Soon after, he began experiencing loss of appetite. Doctors told him he might be suffering from heartburn, but after testing revealed that wasn’t the case, things continued to get worse.
On Sept. 1, 2022 — the morning before Mizzou’s season opener against Louisiana Tech — Luper woke up at 5 a.m. and was having difficulty breathing.
”Every time I was trying to breathe, I would just cough and cough and cough,” he said. “I couldn’t breathe; I didn’t know what was going on.”
Luper was rushed to the hospital, where doctors administered an X-ray in an attempt to diagnose his condition. The X-ray revealed that the bottom left side of his lung had died. Doctors immediately conducted a CT scan, which revealed blood clots in his lungs.
A blood clot in the lungs, also known as a pulmonary embolism, is a serious condition that requires immediate medical attention.
“He’s my best friend,” then-sophomore quarterback Brady Cook said. The two were roommates. “We were really looking forward to (the season opener), being out there together.
“And ... he couldn’t be out there. So that was really upsetting.”
Despite the serious risk of playing with a pulmonary embolism, Luper was still determined to get medical clearance; however, it was too much of a risk for Mizzou. If he were to play, he’d be risking his life with one hit.
“The most important thing for us was just making sure he’s healthy and being him,” Drinkwitz said Oct. 26, 2022, during a “Tiger Talk” event at Shiloh Bar & Grill.
Luper sat out the entire 2022 season and used blood thinners to help him maintain a normal lifestyle. But he was not ready to give up on his football career. He put his name in the transfer portal Jan. 2 of this year, hoping there was a school that would medically clear him to play.
”I tried the portal just to see if I’d be able to get cleared somewhere else,” he said. “I was talking to a couple schools, Arizona and Nevada, and they all were like, ‘Yeah, we can get you cleared.’”
The closest Luper came to playing college football this season was with Nevada. As those discussions progressed, it seemed the program was on track to get him cleared. However, someone from Nevada’s legal team stepped in and made it clear that it wasn’t feasible.
The liability was too great for the program to allow him to play, given his history with a pulmonary embolism.
”I have to take blood thinners for a certain amount of time, so I take them every morning and night,” Luper said. “The thing is, if I were to play while on blood thinners and got hit hard, I could suffer internal bleeding, and that’s pretty much game over.”
At that point, classes had become difficult to manage, and the 2023 Fall SEC Academic Honor Roll honoree was preparing to drop out of college. His father convinced him to stay in school and come back to Columbia for one more year.
”We’ll just figure it out from there,” Curtis Luper recalled.
While wrapping up his studies at Mizzou this year, Chance Luper recently discovered a passion he never expected: coaching.
”I never wanted to be a coach,” he said. “I would’ve rather joined the military than be a coach. I always told him (Curtis Luper) that.”
This change of heart originated in Luper’s capstone internship class, where he realized sports management might not be for him.
”It was a lot of business and marketing stuff, and I thought, ‘I don’t want to do that,’” Luper said. “I want to do something related to coaching and football.”
Working with kids is something that has helped Luper reconnect with the game he fell in love with at a young age, even though his playing days are in the past now.
”I’m not sure which level yet, but eventually, I want to work my way up to being a college coach, even if it takes a few years at the high school level,” he said. “My perspective on coaching has definitely changed, and it’s something I’m really interested in now, for sure.”
Copyright 2024 Columbia Missourian
This story was originally published October 9, 2024 at 11:09 AM with the headline "Former Mizzou Tiger rediscovers football passion after life-threatening diagnosis."