It’s easy to mistake 13-year-old Andrew McCall’s bedroom in Philadelphia, Mississippi, for a trophy case.
The walls and shelves are littered with memorabilia ranging from signed posters to a basketball autographed by Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.
The altarpiece of McCall’s room is his dresser, on which his prized Mississippi State possessions reside.
Stacked in a pyramid display are 19 signed baseballs. Nestled behind a few personal awards and a collection of cowbells is a Dallas Cowboys helmet with Bulldog legend Dak Prescott’s signature.
A ring from the 2017 national runner-up MSU women’s basketball team also rests proudly at the front of the crowded surface.
“I’m going to need to get something else to put (the memorabilia) on since it’s starting to tilt,” said McCall, a lifelong MSU fan.
The centerpiece is a red, leather MSU baseball glove — a present from senior center fielder Jake Mangum. While visually striking, it is the story and relationships behind how he got it that are far more impactful than the mitt itself.
“I’m just a kid playing baseball,” Mangum said. “And the fact that what I do helps him every day is something that I still can’t believe.”
A stark diagnosis
As Andrew’s parents, Perry and Robin McCall, met with a doctor at the Blair E. Batson Children’s Hospital in Jackson on June 2, 2014, Andrew sat outside the door.
Anxious for any kind of news, he eavesdropped on the conversation.
The speech was slightly muffled. It didn’t matter. He got the message.
When the meeting concluded, Perry sat Andrew on his lap and delivered the truth — Andrew had been diagnosed with high risk T-cell acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL).
“I just kind of broke down and went into a different place in my mind for a couple of days,” Andrew said.
According to the American Cancer Society, ALL accounts for less than half of 1 percent of all cancer cases in the United States.
Andrew’s case involved a mass that had formed between his heart and lungs in addition to 68 percent of his blood being comprised of leukemia blasts.
Doctors devised a three-year plan in which he would endure a steady dosage of chemotherapy, steroids and cranial radiation.
In September 2014, Andrew was declared in remission. His long-term chemo continued until October 2017, but he was finally on the mend — or so he thought.
After his final rounds of treatment, medical staffers progressively noticed ongoing issues during his check-ups. They added up.
On April 6, 2018, Andrew learned his cancer had returned.
“It wasn’t that I was sad really,” he said. “I was just really ticked off.”
The only treatment option at that point was a bone marrow transplant.
After finding a suitable donor and about a month of preparation, Andrew underwent the procedure. For roughly 40 days he was bound to the hospital and spent another 60 in isolation at home.
Upon being discharged, more complications arose. Andrew had contracted a pericardial effusion, or liquid around his heart. Interstitial pneumonia followed.
He was admitted to the intensive care unit on Jan. 24.
“He wasn’t supposed to live that weekend,” Perry recalled.
Despite the doubts, Andrew survived. On May 2, 102 days after he entered the ICU, he was released.
True Maroon
In July 2018, Andrew received two hand-written letters penned on MSU stationery.
The first was a note from Bulldogs baseball coach Chris Lemonis. The second was from Mangum.
Both offered their support and extended an invitation to visit the new Dudy Noble Field when he was able.
Also included was a poster, an autographed baseball and a MSU rally towel — helping add to his ever-growing memorabilia collection.
“Any time he is around us, he is talking about the Bulldogs,” said Tiffany Key, Andrew’s child life specialist. “We definitely heard when he got those and it really made his day.”
One week prior to Andrew’s near-death hospitalization, Mangum visited him at a Men of the Covenant event at the First Presbyterian Church of Madison.
It was there that he bestowed upon his young admirer his game worn hat and the aforementioned glove.
Later Mangum addressed the gathered crowd. And while there were plenty of people in the audience, he was really speaking to one person.
“He just wanted (Andrew) to know that he was an actual hero,” Perry said.
As the event came to a close, Mangum traded contact information with the family, telling Andrew he could always reach out.
The event lasted just a few hours, but it was in that time that McCall had found a mentor and a friend.
“This kid is the epitome of True Maroon,” Key said. “The Bulldogs have really been a source of comfort and a way to cope throughout what he’s gone through.”
The game shirt
Following a 7-3 win over Louisiana Tech on May 14, Lemonis gathered the team in the dugout.
Rattling off the night’s major contributors, he readied to announce who would win the night’s player of the game shirt.
“I know for all those (midweek games) we had a big part of our team watching from his hospital bed,” Lemonis said. “So, Andrew, we’re giving you our game shirt.”
With the help of his walker, Andrew made his way across the dugout to a raucous chorus of cheers from those inside.
“I would’ve been more excited in the facial expression if I hadn’t have just walked a bunch,” he quipped. “I was about to drop.”
Moments later, Andrew broke down the team huddle.
“Dawgs on three,” he yelled. “One, two, three.”
With a bellowing mix of late-teen to early 20-year-old voices, the team responded with a resounding, “Dawgs!”
“He’s felt like a part of our team this whole time,” senior relief pitcher Cole Gordon said. “And to actually have him there in the dugout with us, it really felt right.”
Just 12 days after his release from his latest stay at Batson’s, Andrew had been officially indoctrinated into the Bulldog baseball family.
“When you’re in this kind of condition, there is no way to communicate what it means to the entire family and to those kids because they really don’t have a normal life,” Perry said. “You get isolated into a hospital, shut down. His life really has been with this team.”
Back on his feet
As Andrew and Perry made their way across the parking lot outside Dudy Noble Field Thursday, pitching coach Scott Foxhall strolled along the concourse above the home bullpen.
Foxhall stopped to see how Andrew was feeling.
Perry chimed in, “Andrew, show coach how much you’ve improved.”
With Foxhall leaning over the balcony, Andrew began to ascend from his wheelchair.
His feet came first. Gingerly he removed them from the stirrups at the bottom of the apparatus before touching down gently on the pavement.
Andrew then used his arms to push himself out of his chair and to his feet.
Foxhall continued to watch as Andrew put one foot in front of the other, taking maybe five or six paces toward him, free of support.
The MSU pitching coach shouted words of encouragement and excitement. Before heading to the Left Field Lounge, he gestured to Andrew and his father one final time.
With a pound of his chest and a point directed at Andrew, Foxhall acknowledged the determination required for those few unassisted steps.
“He has listened to every inning, every pitch of every game,” Lemonis said. “And when you have a fan like that who has that demeanor and love for it, our kids just love him to death.”
Perry recently asked his son how he felt about the attention he has received of late. Instead of reveling in it, Andrew was frank.
“It just makes me think about all the other kids who have cancer, but people don’t know about,” Andrew told his father.
Today marks the five-year anniversary of Andrew’s initial diagnosis. Though he won’t be in attendance as the Bulldogs take the field, he will be with them in spirit as the players and coaches will don maroon wristbands with the white inscription “Team Andrew.”
His road remains long. Following this weekend’s regional, he will head back to Batson’s for more tests. But no matter what life throws at him, he has found a second family within the MSU baseball team — one that will forever hold a place on top of his dresser.
“The extent that this has been a personal and relational kind of thing, it wasn’t set up, it wasn’t designed,” Perry said. “They just sent a letter and then it turned into a little more, turned into a little more and turned into a little more and it all came together.”
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 43 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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Andrew McCall's prized Mississippi State possessions rest on top of his bedroom dresser. The red baseball mitt, left, was a gift from MSU senior center fielder Jake Mangum. Photo by: Courtesy photo/The McCall Family
In July 2018, Mississippi State University head baseball coach Chris Lemonis and senior center fielder Jake Mangum wrote to 13-year-old Andrew McCall while he was in the hospital being treated for cancer. Photo by: Courtesy photo/The McCall Family
