Sequoia High School graduate Sam Fraley goes from hospital bed to DI football player at Temple University

Funny the detours life throws at you.

Fraley has lived a lifetime since graduating Sequoia in 2017 — a ceremony he didn’t get to attend. Fraley came down with life-threatening disease, rediscovered his love of football and is now a long snapper for the Temple University football team in Philadelphia.

“It’s been like a marathon for me sometimes. … I’ve powered through a lot, but there are a lot of days of frustration and mental exhaustion,” said Fraley, 22. “People tell me, ‘Your story is inspiring.’ I never wanted to inspire anybody.”

Fraley certainly inspired himself. A week before he was scheduled to walk across the stage and receive his high school diploma, Fraley was rushed to the hospital and spent two weeks in Stanford emergency after being diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which, according to the Mayo Clinic website, “Is a rare disorder in which your body’s immune system attacks your nerves.”

Longtime Half Moon Bay Review sports reporter Mark Foyer was diagnosed with GBS in 2015.

After two weeks in the hospital, Fraley was moved to rehab facility in Santa Clara County from which he was discharged in late summer of 2017.

But he was no longer the 210-pound do-everything, team captain football player he was with the then-Cherokees. He was down to 160 pounds, lost a lot of his strength and needed a wheelchair to get around. He returned to Sequoia as a quasi-assistant coach, filming practice and games and then breaking down the video for future practices.

But while doing that, he was getting stronger. Fraley said he ditched the wheelchair and transitioned to a walker by the end of the 2017 high school football season.

“I look back on those nights (as an assistant at Sequoia) and there was a lot of healing going on,” Fraley said.

A Texas native, Fraley was so insistent on carrying out his plan to attend University of Texas that he enrolled in school and moved there to start the second semester with the Longhorns.

His body simply wasn’t ready for the challenge. Before he even attended a class in Austin, his twin brother Tyson, who was also a standout football player at Sequoia, convinced him to come back to the Peninsula and enroll at Foothill College in Los Altos.

It was then that the fire to play football again was stoked.

“[Tyson] definitely gets the credit to getting me to Foothill,” Fraley said.

He started working out with his brother and then had a talk with Foothill assistant coach Matt Raivio and the two decided to start working out and see where things went.

Where it led was to two years with Owls, two years that essentially changed Fraley’s life. It was during his time at Foothill that Fraley grew into a position most don’t give a second thought to — long snapper, whose responsibility is to get the ball to the punter or the holder on a place kick. Not a lot of glamor, but it’s one of those positions that gets noticed when there is a snafu on a punt or kick.

“I had snapped in high school. My dad told me once, ‘Colleges love that. You should keep doing it,’” Fraley said. But after a high school career where he rarely came off the field, he wasn’t thrilled with the notion of being involved in a handful of plays.

When he informed the coaching staff he had snapped in high school, he was immediately thrust into the position. After his freshman year at Foothill, 2018, Fraley was told if he was coming back to the Owls, they wanted him to be their full-time long snapper.

“It wasn’t until last season (2019) that I focused on snapping,” Fraley said. “Snapping is hard because there is not a lot of good coaching out there. I would watch guys on YouTube (to learn techniques).”

Fraley must have been a quick learner because his dad’s words become prophetic as offers from four-year schools started to come in. A scholarship offer from Grambling State came, but Fraley ultimately chose Temple as a preferred walk-on — accepting the offer this past summer.

“I was definitely surprised by the amount of interest I got (from four-year schools),” Fraley said.

Now, Fraley finds himself living the life of a Division I football player and while he has yet to play in a game for the Owls and he’s still feeling the residual effects of the GBS — which include nerve pain in feet, hands and face — he just keeps pushing. Fraley said the toughest thing for him is losing the ability to smile because of the nerve damage.

“The face thing has been a real hang-up for me,” Fraley said. “I think I may the only person who loves wearing a mask (because of the coronavirus).”

For Fraley, preparing for practice or a game is a lot more involved. He is a regular in the trainer’s room to get ready to play football, but he understands that it’s a small price to pay considering he didn’t know what his future held as he laid in a hospital bed at Stanford.

“If you run the 2017 simulation a thousand times … I’m not going to get sick and I’m going to UT-Austin,” Fraley said. “It’s just been exhausting. … But I don’t know if I would change anything. I consider myself halfway through the story. I feel there is more resolution to be reached for me.”

The next step is actually getting to go through a graduation ceremony. He missed high school graduation because of his ailment and COVID-19 wiped out his Foothill College commencement. Fraley’s goal is to not only get his degree in economics, but to walk across the stage and pick up that sheepskin in person.

“I’ve made it through all the non-fun stuff,” Fraley said. “My goal is to get my bachelor’s (degree) and go to grad school.”

Editor's note: This article has been updated to show he received preferred walk-on status at Temple University.