It’s strange how life tends to throw curveballs when we least expect it. But what matters is that we hit them out of the park and rise against all odds. Chris Fowler, in his enduring announcing career, has faced several hurdles, right from his near-death experience in the 2013 Pinstripe Bowl, when he nearly choked on a chicken sandwich. Or his childhood, when at the young age of 14 in high school, he lost his father to cancer. Now, coping with all these situations was nothing short of daunting.

Chris Fowler sat with former football player Marc Megna on his podcast and talked about how he has been part of announcing every national title game since 2014 and has even hosted almost half of the playoff games. However, the moment that stood out for him and reminded him of his father was when he hosted the Purdue v Ohio State game in the 2018 regular season, in which Purdue shockingly beat an undefeated Ohio State. And the inspiration for it came from Purdue’s diehard fan, Tyler Trent, who was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer at just 15.

Fowler described the fandom that Tyler carried and how he went to extreme lengths to get Purdue tickets. “He was the guy who slept out for two days to get those front row student section seats. And Tyler was a cancer patient.” But during the Ohio State v Purdue game in 2018, Tyler’s condition was severe. Even then, Tyler attended the game with his family, knowing full well that it could be his last game. And as Tyler’s story reached Purdue’s locker room? No team in the country could have stopped the Boilermakers that day.

Chris Fowler called that game “almost like a movie,” with Tyler’s story inspiring the 60,000 fans present at Ross-Ade Stadium. Moreover, that was also the moment, according to Chris Fowler, when he remembered his dad and how cancer had touched his life. “Cancer has touched my life ever since I lost my dad when I was in high school,” Fowler said. As for Fowler’s dad, Knox Fowler’s diagnosis, it was something that “came out of the blue,” according to Fowler.

Chris’s father, Knox, at the time was a theater professor at Penn State University, and the family later moved to Colorado Springs. However, when his father got diagnosed with cancer, no one in Fowler’s family told Chris or his brother anything about the diagnosis. Fowler even said that he was kept in “dark” about his father’s diagnosis even when his father had only a few days left, as he told in an earlier video.

Regret, lost goodbyes, and a looming death sentence for Chris Fowler

Fowler talked about how he and his brother were just in their high school and came home one regular day, only to find that their father had cancer. Fowler recalled how he and his brother knew that cancer at the time was “a death sentence,” and they had no idea if their father was feeling sick. Not just that, it was also the day when they got to know that the family was moving to Colorado to get cancer treatment, and the brothers would instead stay in Pennsylvania.

“Throughout his therapy and treatment, my brother and I were kept in the dark. My parents made decisions at the time that they thought were best. Their intentions were good. It was the parenting style at the time. That I’m told to keep all bad news from the kids. We didn’t know much about how the treatment was going. We saw the effect that cancer was having on him, but we were largely kept in the dark, and I’m not mad about that decades later, but reflecting on it. I wish we had been told more,” reflected Fowler emotionally, and later said how he didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye due to them not knowing anything.

Chris Fowler’s journey on the surface may look like a “feel-good story” of rising through the ranks of announcing without even playing football. But, on a deeper level, Fowler, just like any other human being, has faced the tests of life and risen against them. And now, when Folwer has all the resources in the world has just one message to families going through difficult times. “I do think that there is a great power in the truth and the transparency, no matter how grim families’ circumstances are.”