“Lightning Struck Twice:” Cole Camp Senior adjusts to new role

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by Andrew Havranek (for Ozarks Sports Zone)

“It was probably the best play of my high school career,” said Cole Camp senior, Evan Shearer, of a play during week six of the season. “The red sea opened up, I saw the running back, I stuck him, perfect form tackle, shoulder pad, no head. It was great, felt amazing.”

Two plays later, Cole Camp Senior Evan Shearer walked off the sideline.

“I felt my feet kind of get heavy again, and thought, ‘no. Not going through this again,'” Shearer said. “I jogged to the sideline, go to my dad, point at my head and say, ‘It’s up here again.'”

Shearer’s intuition was right, because he had experienced the same symptoms in a few games last year. Doctors didn’t realize the problem until after his game in Week 5.

“Monday morning, I had a seizure,” Shearer recalled.

He went to see doctors at the University of Missouri, who finally had a reason for why Shearer said his feet felt like cinder blocks, why he was throwing up, and why he was dealing with headaches.

“You got a subdural hematoma on the right frontal lobe of [your] brain,” Shearer recalls doctors saying.

Shearer was dealing with blood on the brain. But the 4.2 GPA student athlete was determined to make it back on the field.

And the court.

And the diamond.

He was able to join his basketball team to end the season, played a full baseball season, and made it six weeks into this football season before those symptoms came back – something doctor did not expect to happen.

“They said that lightning stuck twice,” said Shearer’s father, and Cole Camp Head Coach Kevin Shearer. “They said that he did not have a pre-disposed issue. It was in a different spot of his brain. They recommended that we eliminate football, which obviously we have, and it’s heartbreaking to him because he’s a football player.”

So, while he’s not out on the field playing, he’s on the sidelines. Coaching. Alongside his dad.

Shearer says he’s not dealing with any physical problems from this injury, but says it’s been tough emotionally. But, he says his tight knit football team has been behind him the whole way.

“I’m really close to a lot of them. They’re probably all my best friends because we have that brotherhood bond you cant imitate in anything else,” Shearer said. “They mean the world to me and I’m so lucky and grateful that I’ve had them.”

Shearer says he hopes to have doctors clear him for basketball and baseball to finish his high school athletic career. As for after that, he’s not quite sure what he wants to do, but says some interests are being a football coach, and potentially studying pre-med.

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