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Kentucky to honor player, assistant coach with cancer this season
By Nick Krueger
Published:
Teams display stickers on their helmets for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it’s a relief effort for a hurricane, others use them as motivation and award them for big plays.
Kentucky plans to wear helmet stickers this season to honor a player and coach battling cancer.
“I also want to mention that we are going to recognize John Schlarman and Josh Paschal on our helmets this year,” head coach Mark Stoops told reporters Thursday during his media availability.
Both offensive line coach Schlarman and defensive lineman Paschal have undergone cancer treatments recently. Schlarman is going through chemotherapy and coaching at the same time while Paschal had malignant melanoma removed from his foot over the summer, according to Lexington Herald-Leader writer Jennifer Smith.
“And also we have these wristbands that we gave to the team, or these little bracelets or what they are,” Stoops said. “It says #SchlarmanStrong and #JPon3. That’s what the team has been breaking down. Every time we break the team, they say JP on three, JP on me. So that’s what we picked up on that, put that on the wristband. Talked about that today at the team meeting.”
Schlarman arrived at Kentucky in 2013, where he was once an All-SEC offensive guard. Paschal had 16 tackles in eight games including 3.5 sacks as a freshman linebacker in 2017.
Nick covers SEC football for Saturday Down South.
