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Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi congratules Alex Officer on a play against Syracuse in 2016 at Heinz Field.
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Heavy hearts on both sides for Pitt, North Carolina football teams

Matt Freed/Post-Gazette

Heavy hearts on both sides for Pitt, North Carolina football teams

A single tear rolled down Qadree Ollison’s right cheek as he braced himself to talk about former teammate, fellow Western New Yorker and, most important, close friend Alex Officer.

It was just last season that Officer, a Rochester native, was in his fourth year as a Pitt starter, playing left guard and blocking for his Niagara Falls pal, finishing his college career with 46 consecutive starts on the offensive line. It goes without saying that Ollison had the wind knocked out of him when he found out that Officer was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer, after struggling with knee injuries as he worked out for NFL teams this offseason.

“Me and A.O., so close, it’s not even funny. He used to ride home with me back to Niagara Falls, or I’d take him back home to Rochester and stuff like that,” Ollison said after practice Wednesday. “Man, it’s like you live your entire life playing the game that you love, and for something like that to hit you, we’re all pulling for him. He’s our brother. I’m praying for his family, I’m praying for him, but that right there, that’s bigger than football. It makes you really grateful for the opportunity that you have.”

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This weekend, Ollison and his Pitt teammates have the opportunity to make Officer smile with a win against North Carolina, a program whose players will take to their home field Saturday and compete with heavy hearts of their own.

North Carolina's Jalen Dalton sacks Pitt quarterback Kenny Pickett at Kenan Stadium Saturday in Chapel Hill, N.C. North Carolina won, 38-35.
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In the Tar Heel State, residents are still reeling from the wake of Hurricane Florence, which resulted in 31 deaths across 16 North Carolina counties as of Thursday evening and forced the cancellation of the university’s football game last week. As Ollison put it, both the health of his Pitt brother as well as the recovery efforts along the east coast are bigger than football, but at 12:20 p.m. inside the walls of Kenan Stadium, the two sides will try to turn their focus into a victory that can resonate beyond the win-loss column.

“Beat Pitt” is what will be running through the mind of New London, N.C., native and Tar Heels running back Antonio Williams, he told local media this week. “We’ve got to put on for these fans. They deserve it. We had a rough year last year, we haven’t started the way we wanted to this year, and these people deserve it, man.”


 

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Matchup: Pitt Panthers (2-1, 1-0 ACC) versus North Carolina Tar Heels (0-2, 0-0), Kenan Stadium, Chapel Hill, N.C.

When: 12:20 p.m., Saturday.

TV, Radio, Internet: WTAE-TV; KDKA-FM (93.7); ESPN3.

DYK? Pitt has only been 2-0 in ACC play once, when it got off to a 4-0 conference start in 2015 and finished 6-2 as the runner-up in the Coastal Division to … North Carolina.

Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi looks for a flag as his team trails North Carolina in the fourth quarter last November at Heinz Field.
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For the Panthers, many players found out about Officer’s life-threatening news Tuesday night, when his older brother, Jerome Lewis, created a page on GoFundMe.com for donations, or Wednesday morning, when coach Pat Narduzzi addressed it in a team meeting.

Narduzzi himself has been aware of Officer’s troubles since at least Aug. 23, and a day later, he told those assembled at Pitt’s annual kickoff luncheon that he had a former player on his mind amid all the excitement of beginning a new season. All Narduzzi knew then was that Officer kept feeling pain in his knee, so he came back to Pitt’s football facility to get an MRI from team doctors.

“Found out there was more in there than just a ligament or a meniscus,” Narduzzi recalled. “Found out there was something growing in there that was bad. Our hearts and prayers are with that family, are with A.O. He knows that. We’ve had multiple conversations, and text messages, and, ‘How you doing?’ We’re trying to help him along in this process, because he's a ‘Forever Panther’ with us. He’s always with us, all the time.

“A.O.’s quiet. He’s a tough quiet. He grew up in a tough — I mean, he doesn’t have any insurance. … That’s why that GoFundMe page is so important, he doesn’t really have insurance. All the help he can get right now is going to be important for him to help pay some bills.”

And the help is streaming in, both for Officer and for North Carolinians picking up the pieces from the hurricane devastation. As of Friday morning, Officer’s online fundraiser page was up to $41,011, with donations from a plethora of current and former Pitt players, as well as Pittsburgh figures such as Pirates pitcher Jameson Taillon, a cancer survivor himself, and Steelers wide receiver Ryan Switzer, a former Tar Heels star who always tortured Pitt.

Within the Tar Heel family, former linebacker Kevin Reddick started his own GoFundMe campaign for his hometown of New Bern, N.C., where damage has been assessed at more than $100 million. Current North Carolina football players universally agreed to donate their stipend from this week’s game to help reeling communities, and the equipment trucks from both programs will deliver supplies that will be funneled to those in the eastern part of the state.

For coach Larry Fedora’s team, practice this week has represented a return to normalcy since many players left campus upon news of last Saturday’s game against Central Florida being canceled. There were no football activities from Thursday to Sunday, and sitting at 0-2, the Tar Heels will try to use their unexpected off week to hit a reset button.

“I think it is important for us to get back out there,” Fedora said. “Hopefully there will be some people that will be able to take their mind off the pain and suffering they've been going through and enjoy coming out and watching a football game.”

Pitt’s players have a goal to accomplish, too, and while old No. 63 won’t be with them on the field, they’d love nothing more than to put a smile on his face Saturday.

“We took it in, thought about it for a second, and then we had to move on to our meetings,” said senior safety Dennis Briggs. “That’ll definitely be in the back of our minds moving forward, making sure that we’re doing whatever we can to think about and help Alex however we can.”

Brian Batko: bbatko@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrianBatko.

First Published: September 21, 2018, 3:15 p.m.

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Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi congratules Alex Officer on a play against Syracuse in 2016 at Heinz Field.  (Matt Freed/Post-Gazette)
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