RIO GRANDE VALLEY – What would you do with a second chance? 
 
Troop O'Neal doesn't have to wonder about the answer to that question. The redshirt freshman kicker for The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) football team has faced his fair share of hardships in his young life. Weeks before beginning fall training camp, O'Neal survived a medical emergency that nearly changed everything. 
 
From the experience, he developed a mature perspective on life and second chances – one built on unshakeable faith, perseverance, and genuine appreciation for every opportunity, no matter how small.  
 
"I can look back on my past self and ask, if that would've ended different, let's say the worst would have happened that day, what would I have wanted to change in my life?" O'Neal said. "I know myself. I tend to take days for granted. You think waking up tomorrow is a given. It was super surreal having that happen to me and to realize I'm so lucky to be here." 
 
From Common Procedure to Critical Condition 
On May 27, Troop O'Neal had a tonsillectomy and a septoplasty to fix a deviated septum. Both procedures are common and he expected a recovery time of roughly 10 days. But on June 1, common turned critical in a hurry.  
 
"I coughed, just a small cough, and the scab came off in my throat where they had taken the tonsils out. It started bleeding a lot. I didn't feel the scab come off, but I felt just a bunch of blood in my mouth," Troop recalled. 
 
The doctors told the O'Neal family it was normal for there to be some bleeding when the scab came loose, but Troop knew something was off. He called his parents, Todd and Becky, who were at a wedding about an hour away, and they told him to go to the emergency room. His younger brother, Trott, drove Troop to two hospitals because their first stop didn't have an ENT on call. At the second hospital, an ENT saw Troop and said he would cauterize the wound and everything would be fine. 
 
While Troop waited to go to the operating room on a slow Sunday in the ER, his throat was bleeding and clotting on loop. Suddenly, he heaved up over a liter of blood at once. 
 
"He sat there for a second and said, 'I think I'm going to pass out,' and then he just dropped like a sack of potatoes. That got everybody moving a little quicker," Todd said. 
 
The cauterization was supposed to take about 10-15 minutes. The O'Neals sat in the waiting room longer than expected, which was a little disconcerting, but they still thought Troop would be fine. When the ENT returned to talk to Todd and Becky, he said everything was taken care of, but Troop lost a lot of blood and he had to get a transfusion, so he was going to be admitted overnight. Not great to hear, Todd thought, but the parents breathed a sigh of relief. 
 
A few minutes later, the ENT peeked his head into the waiting room and said he was getting called back down to the OR and would let them know soon what was going on. Becky told Todd she could feel that something was wrong, and they started to pray. 
 
Then, over the PA system, a woman's voice said, "Medical alert in OR #2. Rapid response team." The hallway doors burst open as nurses and doctors ran by carrying medical equipment. 
 
"Immediately, my heart dropped to my foot," Todd reflected. "My wife just started bawling, and I started crying as well. I couldn't, in my head, imagine how you go from having your tonsils taken out to coding in the OR."
 
When the ENT finally returned, he was sweating and out of breath and dropped into a chair. He told the O'Neals that, in 20 years of practicing medicine, he had never seen anything like what Troop had just endured. 
 
The scab from the tonsillectomy was close to an artery, and when it came loose, it started an arterial bleed. Because of the anatomical closeness of the esophagus and the bronchi, when Troop would breathe, blood was getting caught up and taken into his lungs. 
 
His right lung filled with blood and collapsed. His blood oxygen level dropped into the low 40s – a situation becomes life-threatening if your blood oxygen level drops into the 70s. At that point, and even worse beyond it, cells start to die and organs can shut down. 
 
The medical staff put a thin needle in Troop's chest between his ribs to relieve the pressure and reinflate the lung. The ER doctor put a large drain tube directly into his right lung to release the blood, but not enough came out and his oxygen level remained dangerously low. They called for a pulmonologist and sent Troop to the ICU once he was stabilized. 
 
A nurse walked Todd and Becky to Troop's room, and before they entered, she warned them that what they were about to see was going to be very unpleasant. 
 
"We walked in, and I would describe it as the most horrific thing I've ever seen in person," Todd choked up. 
 
Troop had blood all over his face and neck, in his ears and hair, that he had ejected because the arterial bleed was overwhelming his lung. He was heavily sedated and intubated, but he was fighting it hard. His arms were restrained to the bed because he was trying to pull out the breathing tube that was keeping him alive and the multiple IVs – two in each arm and one in his jugular – that were delivering a combination of sedatives and strong pain medication into his ailing body. 
 
His blood pressure, which is naturally low, would dip even more with the sedation, so doctors administered epinephrine to get it back up. But the adrenaline made him conscious enough to restart the cycle of wrestling with the mountain of tubes. He was kicking his legs in discomfort so aggressively he strained his left calf. 
 

When the pulmonologist arrived, he told the O'Neals he wanted to do a bronchoscopy to figure out what was happening in the right lung. He explained everything to Todd, then started having him sign off on the paperwork. 
 
"In a really surreal moment, he slid over a thing that involved organ donation and said, 'This is in the event that things go wrong,'" Todd paused, his voice caught with emotion. "And that, for us, made it that much more real. When we were watching him in the room, I kept having the thought in my mind that, am I about to watch my kid pass away? It was constant prayer for God to spare his life." 
 
The Road to Recovery and Understanding
The pulmonologist was able to suction out the blood and blood clots that overtook Troop's right lung, but he remained in critical condition and on a ventilator in the ICU.  
 
On Tuesday, June 3, the medical staff started slowly weaning Troop off the sedation. The breathing tube and drain tube in his lung were removed. When Troop came to, his dad asked him a seemingly simple question. 
 
"The first vivid memory I have was my dad leaned over me and said, 'What day do you think it is?' And I said Sunday. And he said, 'It's actually Tuesday afternoon,' and I was like, what in the world happened?" Troop said. 
 
He had dream-like memories of waking up a few times, feeling himself chained to the bed and awfully aware of the big tube down his throat. As Todd explained everything that happened, the dream sequences started making sense, and Troop realized how lucky he was to be alive. 
 
"We lost track of how many people at the hospital said they'd never seen that before and that clearly God had something special in store for Troop because he really shouldn't even be here. People don't make it back from things like that," Todd said with tears in his voice. 
 
Troop went home on June 4 and began the slow journey to recovery. He was on a liquid diet for two weeks because of all the trauma to his throat. His hemoglobin was low due to the blood loss, leaving him out of breath when he walked up the stairs or did simple tasks. He spent the first month out of the hospital on the couch, unable to do much, taking iron supplements to improve his blood levels. He dropped from 192 pounds to 166. 
 
Around six weeks after the incident, he had his first appointment to begin the process of returning to UTRGV and football. But the doctor caught him off guard with a comment insinuating he shouldn't play this season. Fear and questioning set in. 
 
Troop went straight to his room when he got home from the appointment, and when Todd went to ask how he was doing, Troop broke down in tears. He didn't understand why God had allowed all this to happen. 
 
This wasn't the first major setback Troop had experienced as an athlete. As a high school senior at Prestonwood Christian Academy (PCA), he tore his ACL in his right knee, his kicking leg, in the quarterfinals of the 2023 TAPPS Div. I state soccer tournament. The college he was planning to attend for football went in a different direction after the injury. His collegiate career had to be delayed a year as he worked his way back. 
 
"It has honestly felt like a battle since my senior year of high school. Tearing my ACL, that was heartbreaking. I came to UTRGV with high hopes, and then this happened. There have been multiple times when I was like, is this the end?" Troop reflected. 
 
"God gives his toughest battles to his toughest soldiers. That's how I choose to look at it," he added. "The doctor implying that maybe I shouldn't play football this year, that was really hard for me to hear. But God definitely got me through that. I had a lot of down time, so I was reading devotionals, reading my Bible, praying. A lot of the motivation, too, was from family and friends telling me that they've seen what I've been able to overcome in the past and they didn't doubt that I could do it again." 
 
Troop credits UTRGV Director of Football Medicine Shane Venteicher for checking in consistently and effectively communicating the severity of his misfortune to the coaching staff. When Becky first told Venteicher about what happened on June 2, she sent him a picture of Troop in the hospital bed.

"That picture messed me up," Venteicher admitted. "I communicated with the coaches, telling them this is what's going on, and I straight up was like, 'I'm worried about him for life, I don't even care about him kicking for us.' And they agreed that, if he can kick again, great, but if not, we'll figure out something to help him out. When we got the message that he was awake, and he finally texted me back, I just thought thank goodness. And right away he told me, 'I want to play football.' I was like, 'I just want you to get out of the hospital.'" 
 

Troop was cleared by his doctors on July 11 and completed his physical with UTRGV on July 14. Before jumping back in fully with team activities, he had to show he could handle the sports medicine team's return-to-play routine. The Vaqueros were still in their summer lifting and conditioning program, so Troop would warm up with the team then work with the sports med staff, getting on the stationary bike, doing core work, jogging, then sprinting, then building up to longer distance runs. The medical staff kept a close eye on Troop's pulse, oxygen levels and vitals, and made sure he wasn't pushing himself too much. 
 
"I thought it would be way harder, but it was easy for him. We tried to taper it, but he handled all of it really, really well. We would actually have to hold him back," Venteicher said. 
 
Finding Perspective and Making Good on Second Chances
Against all odds, Troop O'Neal was on the practice field on July 31 when the UTRGV football team kicked off its first fall training camp in program history. 
 
He didn't have any pain from the surgery affecting his workouts. The biggest issue upon his return was being out of shape. His lifts were down, the "easy runs" left him exhausted, and it took some time for the muscle memory to kick in. 
 
Troop had to work his way up the depth chart and earned the opportunity to kick in UTRGV's inaugural football game on Aug. 30 in front of a sold-out crowd at Robert & Janet Vackar Stadium. Running onto the field for that first game was an emotional experience for the kicker and his family in the stands. 
 
"When they fired off the pyrotechnics and he came running out of the tunnel and went and kneeled down in the end zone to pray, that was a very, very special moment," Todd said. "In James 1, right out of the gate it says, 'Count it all joy when you go through trials of various kinds.' I think that's scripture Troop was familiar with, but didn't really embrace or understand until he went through what he's gone through. Now he does see it as a second chance and a real opportunity to say, horrible things happen to all of us, but knowing the hope we have in Jesus Christ allows us to weather those things in a different way. He definitely carries himself differently and has a greater appreciation for the little things and the big things in life." 
 

Through three games, Troop is 6-for-6 on points after touchdowns (PAT) and has done 10 kickoffs averaging 60.4 yards per kick to help the Vaqueros hold a 3-0 record. On Sept. 12, he sent the opening kickoff of UTRGV's game against Langston through the back of the end zone. Head coach Travis Bush praised Troop's efforts to return from the hardship and said he's a great leg to have contributing to the team. 
 
"It's crazy. The kid went from being on a ventilator to being a full participant and now kicking in Div. I college games. If that had happened to me, I don't know if I'd be able to do that," Venteicher said. "It shows a lot about Troop as a person, his drive, his work ethic and what he's willing to do for what he wants. I respect it." 
 
Time and time again since that life-changing Sunday, the O'Neals have been reminded that Troop simply being alive is a miracle. To the O'Neals, the fact that he is back on the field playing Div. I football is proof of God's goodness and reinforces the faith that has anchored their family. 
 
The experience also gave Troop a new perspective, and perhaps new purpose, in life. 
 
"I have definitely had some life changes after that happened. The new beginning does feel real to me. With this second chance, I want to make the most of it. Even with little stuff like making sure the house is clean, not skipping reps in the weight room, anything like that, I'm just choosing to live differently," Troop said. 
 
"No matter what you go through, you have the choice how you're going to respond to it," he continued. "I feel like 10-20% of life is what happens to you, and 80-90% is how you respond. If you have the right attitude, you can get through anything." 
 
In high school, when Troop tore his ACL during the soccer playoffs, he chose to stay engaged instead of getting down. Prestonwood Christian reached the state championship match and found itself headed to penalty kicks, with the bout knotted at 0-0, against San Antonio Central Catholic. Troop, with his right knee heavily wrapped, convinced the coach – his father, Todd – to let him take a penalty kick. It was his first playing time since the injury. Troop nailed his kick, and PCA went on to win the title after taking PKs, 5-4. 
 
After his knee surgery in March 2023, Troop spent the fall at home, coaching football at PCA – two of his UTRGV teammates, redshirt freshman receiver Gunner Naivar and freshman defensive lineman Jack Harwell, were on that team. Troop joined the Tulsa football program the following spring and appeared in one game in 2024, making one PAT against North Texas. He entered the transfer portal in December 2024 and announced his move to UTRGV on Feb. 6.
 
Being on this team, making history with UTRGV, was already a second chance at a dream Troop was determined to make the most of. Being in a community that truly supports, loves and pours into its football team has energized him even more, especially after the difficulties of the summer.  
 
Troop now sees the bigger picture and recognizes how the platform football gives him can help him inspire others. He's attacking every day, and every opportunity, intentionally, whether it's on the field, in the classroom, or relating to life. He wants his story to be a testimony that will inspire others to give everything they have every day and live with no regrets, because not everyone gets a second chance. 
 
"To some degree, I'm still processing the fact that I literally almost died," Troop admitted. "People always wonder why things happen to them, and I constantly find myself asking God why did that happen to me? I think one of the ways it can work for good is to be a testament to other people and give the perspective of someone who knows what it is to have a second chance. It's my reminder to live today like it's your last because you genuinely don't know if it will be."   

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