Rest Of The Story

Growing up, he "basically played every sport imaginable" -- basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis, and track.
But Andrew Heard, son of Dr. Mark and Mary Heard of Cuero, Texas, and a seminary student and inside receiver for the Bears' football team, says he never wanted to play football.
Still, Heard spent many a Friday night accompanying his dad, a general practitioner, to Cuero High School football games. "My dad worked all of the games, and so I would ride with all of the players who got hurt, and I thought they were all crazy," he says, laughing.
Then one day when he was throwing a football around with his dad, he considered playing football. "Dad got excited because he thought it was cool that I could throw the ball so well, and so then I started getting excited."
Within a matter of years, he became one of the players he once thought of as "crazy" -- leading his team to the 3A Division I finals and earning first-team all-district honors as quarterback his sophomore year.
Heard also earned four letters and was a state qualifier in track as a freshman and sophomore, received three-time all-area selection honors and four letters in baseball, earned letters in both tennis and basketball, and three letters in football.
As an all-around athlete, Heard was devastated in his last semester of high school when doctors said he had stage four Hodgkin's disease, a cancer that starts in lymphatic tissue. Stage four is the highest level, indicating how far the lymphoma has spread. "It broke my heart and just scared me so bad, and it made me realize how short life is, and how fragile." 
After the discovery of a tumor that was roughly the size of a cantaloupe, Heard underwent surgery and then seven months of chemotherapy followed by two months of radiation.
"The first treatment was the worst -- after that they were always bad, but the first treatment I lost about 65 pounds, so I was really, really skinny," he says. "It was really awful, but it was maybe the most important moment of my entire life, because in the midst of all of that I had a prayer session with the Lord that changed the course of my life. I feel like I'm a different person."
As a child, Heard had felt called to ministry, but with all of his activities, that call was pushed to the back of his mind. However, during his illness, when he had lots of time to pray and listen, he rediscovered the call.
Following the long, painful process of undergoing chemotherapy treatments in which his tumor shrank in half every time, Heard was finally on the road to recovery. He entered Texas Tech University on a football scholarship in January 2002.
Keeping his ministerial goal in mind, he graduated from Tech in two and a half years, a feat he accomplished through a combination of summer school and testing out of classes. He wanted to spend more time with his younger sister, a senior at Baylor. So in 2004, Heard entered Baylor's George W. Truett Theological Seminary, where he is the recipient of both the Cecil G. Edwards Family/George W. Truett Theological Seminary Endowed Scholarship Fund and the Truett Scholarship Fund.
During his second semester in seminary, Heard began to question what God's purpose was for his time spent at Truett. Following advice he was given to "do what you love to do and let God take care of the rest," he decided there were two things he could do which could help people and were things that he loved.
"I felt like I needed to write a book, and I felt like I needed to play football," he says. "So I just started writing, and I started running."
Although he figured he was never going to play because he was "old," Heard decided to try out. He made the team.
"[My] players can always go and talk to him," says Coach David Nichol, who oversees the inside receivers. "He's a spiritual guy. Very mature for his age. You need a guy like that on your team and in the locker room."
Heard titled his book The Modern Myth: An All-American Eclipse. It chronicles his call by God and the path he took to find the things he believes most important in life. He is seeking a publisher. 
"It is a narrative about a young football player, but it is more importantly commentary on how we determine what is important in life," he says. "The book ends with me on what appears to be my deathbed having come to the realization that all the things that I thought would fulfill my life were simply myths that left me empty and wanting God."
Now he is living out the rest of the story. His disease is gone, although there is a risk that it will come back. He says he isn't worried, however. 
On and off the football field, Heard's faith has affected many.
"Andrew has ministered a lot across the state and beyond with Discipleship Now weekends and other speaking engagements," says Dr. Levi Price, professor of Christian ministries and director of pastoral ministries at Truett. "I know him to be a fine young Christian man who has a great desire to share his faith with others. He is solid in his beliefs and dedicated in the fullest sense to the Christian lifestyle. He fought a battle against death and came out very well."

The Cecil G. Edwards Family/George W. Truett Theological Seminary Endowed Scholarship Fund was established in 2001 by Cecil and Marjorie Edwards of Waco. Dr. Cecil Edwards was the first full-time physician at the Baylor Health Center and served for 25 years. Four of the couple's five children are Baylor graduates. Through the scholarship fund, which is need-based, the family "expresses its love and appreciation for Baylor University and its mission." The family has a provision in their estate to increase the funding of the scholarship when they die.