The size of the fight in the Bulldog: Carl Junction senior with rare medical condition overcomes obstacles

Kade Kelso battles eosinophilic esophagitis, or EOE, to play football

Carl Junction's Kade Kelso lines up for a play during a game this season. / Cam Anderson

For 10 years, doctors told Kade Kelso to avoid contact sports.

He played football anyway.

When he was in third grade and stood all of 4-foot-2 and weighed less than 70 pounds, he was used at defensive tackle.

He had the time of his life.

From junior high when the coaches weren’t sure how to handle his condition and to high school when the cancellation of the junior varsity schedule as a sophomore made him question his commitment.

Kelso didn’t flinch; he stood firm, knowing his mother had always told him, “If you start something, you finish it.”

His football career now having spanned 10 years, Kelso understands his final games are upon him as he reflects on everything he has had to overcome to enjoy the games, the plays, the atmosphere and the camaraderie of his teammates.

“I never wanted to be treated any different. No pity, no special favors. All I ever wanted was to be a part of the team. I just wanted to play football,” Kelso said.

Kelso, the son of Kaylee and Trenton Myers, is one of 22 seniors who will be recognized this Friday night on Senior Night at Carl Junction, in the Bulldogs' final regular-season home game.

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EOE

It wasn’t until age four that doctors finally diagnosed Kelso with a rare condition called eosinophilic esophagitis – EOE – a condition in the esophagus that causes inflammation when triggered by allergies, in Kelso’s case, protein found in food.

“Multiple doctors told my mom that nothing was wrong with me and I was being a stubborn kid who wouldn’t eat meat, but little did they know my body literally would not allow me to eat meat because it would close my esophagus,” Kelso said. “They tried six different test drugs and crazy amounts of steroids. I had eight weeks of no food or water through my mouth; everything had to go through a tube that was in my nose that led to my stomach while I was awake and felt everything while they forced it down.”

Fear and uncertainty racked Kelso’s mother.

“She was scared; I was too young to understand what was wrong. EOE was still a relatively new condition; very little was known about it because there had never been studies done about it, there’s never been anyone who has beat it. It was scary for my parents because at that time only a handful of kids had been diagnosed with it. We didn’t know what to expect because there was no case history,” Kelso said. “All I knew was my body wouldn’t let me have food. After they finally diagnosed me when I was four, it wasn’t until I was 7 when they surgically placed a tube that leads directly to my stomach. Once I got the tube put in I could only eat turkey, chicken, rice and potatoes. That’s it. No seasoning or anything to make it taste good.”

Still yet, it wasn’t until Kelso reached first grade when he started to grasp his condition.

“I remember in first grade was when I began to comprehend it because I was still on a strict diet, while everyone else was eating school lunch or when kids would bring cookies or cupcakes for birthdays, everyone else could have those and I was the kid who couldn’t. It was then in first grade I realized ‘Oh wow, I am kind of different from everyone else,” Kelso said. “My mom made a decision to try and give me the most normal life possible with my condition. She took me off steroids and started to let me eat whatever I wanted through my mouth. It wasn’t a cure, but we were managing the EOE as best as we could while being at home and living a normal life. That was in third grade when they took me off all the steroids and let me eat whatever I wanted as long as I was managing it well.

“We were managing it for four or five years, from 2015 to 2019 and then I had a flare-up on Thanksgiving 2019 and that caused me to go back to the hospital and they wanted to put me back on steroids. My mom fought to get me on a test drug called Dupixent and which manages my EOE very well. I’m not cured, I can go back to being sick at any time, but Dupixent helps me live the most normal life I can.”

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Bearcrawlers

It was after Christmas 2015 when Kelso and his family moved to Carl Junction from Georgia.

“I had never thought about pursuing sports before I moved to Carl Junction. Then I made friends with Gabe Jenkins and he told me about football and I lived next door to Thomas Hull and we were always out front of his house playing whiffle ball,” Kelso said.

In August 2016, Kelso signed up for third-grade Carl Junction Youth Football with head coach Tony Endicott.

“I was 4-foot-2 and weighed less than 70 pounds. During weigh-in, the coaches made me wear all my equipment on the scale so that I would make 70 pounds so I could touch the ball,” Kelso said. “Doctors did not recommend playing football; they steered me away from physical sports. The EOE had stunted my growth and the development of my body. I was so small not being able to eat because my body had rejected food for so long. But every kid wants to play football and I wanted to play football too.

“The doctors wanted me to stay inside, not do anything athletic, no physical sports, they didn’t want me to be an athlete because it was not safe, not in a life-threatening way, they thought it wasn’t a good choice given my condition. That was also the same summer when I got my feeding tube and that was just hell. The healing process of it was horrible, the skin kept trying to grow over it, and we had to freeze skin off. It was gross, nasty, very sore, tender to the touch and all that while trying to practice football in the heat.”

But it was the motivation provided by Endicott that kept Kelso going.

“His one quote has always stuck with me and I remember it to this day. He said I might be the smallest player on the team, but I had the biggest heart of any kid on the team and that I wanted to be out there more than any other kid on the team,” Kelso said. “I was thinking about what he said recently, how he believed in me and no one else did, everyone is looking at me, some 4-foot nothing, less than 70 pounds and trying to play football, probably shouldn’t have been playing football, but he saw something in me that no one else saw and that has been with me ever since.

“It motivated me. He was the first person to ever tell me that my being there was a good thing. All the doctors told me no, my mom told me it might not be the best idea. But here’s someone who’s telling me this is a good thing, it’s a good decision. He told me he liked me being out there. He agreed with my choice. I didn’t care how much I played or if I ever got to touch the ball, it was more about, I’m playing football. I never worried about being a star, I just wanted to play.”

Little did Kelso know exactly what role he would have with the third-grade football team.

“One day at practice, we were doing the Oklahoma Drill, back when it was still legal, and somehow Gabe Jenkins and I ended going up against each other. It was after that the coaches came up with a scheme where Gabe and I lined up at defensive tackle and our job was to shoot the A gap on both sides of the center on every play,” Kelso said. “We were the Bearcrawlers. They told us go straight up in the gap, disrupt the play and beat the big, slow offensive linemen. Gabe and I would be in there for so many plays and then Cole Beezley and Thomas Hull would rotate in.

“We had fresh Bearcrawlers creating havoc in the backfield and opposing teams couldn’t block these four small guys shooting the gaps. I’m pretty sure the Bearcrawlers led the team in tackles for loss. That was so much fun.”

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Junior High, High School Football

Prior to each of his four years of youth football, Kelso was advised not to play. Once he got to junior high, for both years he was given the same advisory.

“It was said to me that football is ‘not in your best interest’ and ‘I would not recommend it’ and ‘you have nothing left to prove,’ but for me, I was on the team and once you start something, you finish it,” Kelso said. “I never wanted my medical condition to be an excuse for why I quit or someone who used his medical condition as an excuse. I loved being on the team.

“Even in fifth grade, when I suffered a concussion and spent two weeks in the dark because I got my bell rung. I was told then I should be done, but I wanted to keep playing and after three weeks of recovery, I was back playing. I was stubborn in that aspect. I always felt like I had a calling to play football. No need to be a star, just play.

“In 7th grade, I don’t think the coaches fully understood what was going on with me, but in 8th grade playing for Coach Jake Stevenson, he was great. He was Tony 2.0.”

As Kelso started to get older, the questions began surrounding his condition and how it would affect his development.

“With EOE, I was told it could change when I hit puberty, which was weird and I didn’t know what that meant or what to expect,” Kelso said. “I wasn’t sure if it was going to start bothering me more, would I be limited to certain foods in more than I already was. I remember it just took forever to eat because my body tells me it doesn’t want the food. It seemed like I would chew on my food forever until it was the consistency of mashed potatoes before I could swallow it.

“Jake Stevenson knew what was going on; he communicated with my mom and was very encouraging. He said a lot of things that I still quote to this day. He recognized that I was struggling and he said to keep at it, that he loved having me out there on the field and that I was a good player and don’t quit.”

Upon entering high school, his freshman year, the struggle with proper nutrition for body development in order to gain size in order to compete was the immediate obstacle.

“EOE responds to protein in food and it's difficult when you’re trying to get added muscle so you can play at the high school level to put on some pounds of muscle,” Kelso said. “It was hard, I had to tell myself I had to eat and when my EOE flared up, I still had to eat meat as it was the only thing that was going to give me the protein I needed to grow.”

As a freshman, Kelso stood 4-foot-11 and weighed 100 pounds. A year later, he had had a growth spurt and was 5-foot-5, 125 pounds.

“Freshman year wasn’t great. Wasn’t growing like everyone else was and EOE was kicking my butt, but then my sophomore year, I had grown and was looking forward to contributing more on the field and then they canceled the junior varsity schedule and then I stopped growing.

“It was as if I was just starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. I was losing my motivation because it got to the point that I was coming to practice, putting in the work and not getting any playing time. It was mentally tough. I’m going to work, clocking in and clocking out, but there was no paycheck.”

Finally, after a rough first two years of high school football, his junior year he saw significant playing time on the junior varsity.

“I knew going into my junior year that competing for varsity playing time with a group of seniors like Jaxton Wobken, Ryder Pyles, Jet Mills and Max Goddard, varsity probably wasn’t going to happen. So I was going to make the best out of the junior varsity and I didn’t expect much, figured it’s JV ball we would run smash mouth, but Coach (Adam) Merrell and (Luke) Masters made it fun,” Kelso said. “Merrell and Masters believed in me, I quote Coach Merrell a lot. He said I might be 5-6 but I play like I’m 6-foot and encouraged me to always play with a chip on my shoulder. He knew I was undersized and EOE stunted my growth, but he made me understand that I had nothing to lose, to give 100 percent no matter what, that always stuck with me. He told me we were playing for next year and next year is yours.”

That next year is now and Kelso has made his mark as part of the wide receiver rotation with the Carl Junction varsity. Through eight games, he has caught four passes for 28 yards.

“It was week two, home game with Rogers Heritage, first pass ever thrown to me, a simple five-yard hitch route, just turn and catch the ball and I dropped it,” Kelso said. “The moment got too big for me, my legs were shaking. I thought to myself I’ll never see another ball again. No way will they throw it my way again.

“Two weeks later, I got another opportunity. First catch, seven yards. Later in the game, a second catch, five yards. Going into my senior year, my first goal was to earn playing time, then earn a start, and then catch a ball. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but for me, it’s everything.”

Especially for a player small in stature who never thought he would be competing at this level.

“If you would have asked me in third grade, can you imagine playing on Friday nights? I never thought I would be here. Never thought I would hear my name said by the PA announcer for a five-yard catch, but I keep exceeding the goals I set for myself,” Kelso said. “I never expected to be a part of a sports team where the entire community, people who don’t even know me, come to the games on Friday night and cheer for us. I never could have imagined that experience.”