#PMARSHONAU: Derick Hall's incredible journey to Auburn

  • by Phillip Marshall
Derick Hall overcame the longest of odds to play football for Auburn. (Photo: Jason Caldwell, 247Sports)
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The advice offered by somber-faced doctors was terrifying and devastating for 26-year-old Stacy Gooden. They told her that her little son, not breathing when he was born four months premature, had no chance of a quality life.

“He was actually born dead,” his mother, now Stacy Gooden-Crandle, told AuburnUndercover. “The doctors wanted me to just let nature take its course. We decided we wanted to fight for him.”

And so, on March 19, 2001, at Gulfport (Miss.) Memorial Hospital began the incredible journey of Derick Hall.

For five months, little Derick, so small his mother could hold him in the palm of her hand, fought for his life in the hospital. He was on life support for more than a week. He had bleeding in his brain. The prognosis was grim.

“They said he’d never be able to walk or be able to talk,” his mother, a Gulfport social worker, said. “They said he’d just be a vegetable. He’d be 85 percent mentally retarded. He wouldn’t have any quality of life. They said 'we shouldn’t try to save this baby.'”

On Saturday, Stacy Gooden-Crandle will be in the stands at Jordan-Hare Stadium to watch her son, a true freshman, play the Buck position on Auburn’s defensive line, perhaps the nation’s most talented. He is 6-foot-3 and pushing 240 pounds. He has uncommon speed and athleticism. A straight-A student at Gulfport High School, he is majoring in civil engineering at Auburn.

On that day in 2001, a mother prayed for her son and for strength.

“A young woman being told all this, I was scared, Gooden-Crandle said. “I didn’t know if I could financially support this kid. I didn’t know if I was prepared for the things I was being told. We just trusted God wholeheartedly, and look what we’ve got now.”

When little Derick went home from the hospital, the fight was just beginning. He had severe asthma and was hospitalized for weeks at a time. His future was still uncertain.

“It got so bad that he could go outside for three or four minutes and he would need his rescue inhaler,” his mother said.

Yet, when he was 4 years old, Derick played flag football. He loved it from the start.

“He’s an amazing kid,” his mother said. “He didn’t let the things he went through as a young man be a handicap. I told him you have to push through it and fight through it. He loved football. I got the coaches inhalers; I kept one in my purse. Everybody had one just in case he needed it.  He’s just a fighter. I always encourage him to just keep being him.”

His mother and later Cedric Crandle, the stepfather he calls his dad, were there for him at every turn. And they still are today.

“My mom is my queen,” Derick said. “She is everything to me, how hard she worked raising two kids by herself at first, working two or three jobs. God blessed me with a great stepdad. I refer to him as my father, not my stepdad.”

Derick remembers the frustration of not being like the other boys, fighting for his breath while others ran and played. He doesn’t remember ever considering giving up.

“The earliest thing I remember is being 4 or 5 years old and having an asthma attack,” Derick said. “I was in the hospital for three weeks. Going through all that at a young age, going through breathing machines and treatments and stuff like that, getting through all of that every year at a young age really put me in position to learn how to fight, compete and face adversity.”
Hall with his family on commitment day (Photo: Keith Niebuhr, 247Sports)
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 Derick became a three-sport athlete, standing out in football, basketball and track at Gulfport High School. He was one of the top football prospects in Mississippi last year. He had Division I offers in basketball. Those things must have seemed beyond the reach of a little boy fighting to breathe.

“It was definitely hard,” Derick said. “Watching everybody run when I was over there coughing up a lung, it was pretty hard.”

There are times it’s still hard today. His lungs are still not as developed as they normally would be at his age. The little boy who wouldn’t give up became the young man who still won’t give up.

“I have the lungs of a 13- or 14-year-old child,” Derick said. “Trying to overcome those obstacles through hard work and dedication and commitment started at a young age up until now. That’s what propelled me to where I am today.”

Derick no longer relies on his rescue inhaler. He plays college football at the highest level, rarely having to stop and catch his breath. He plans to play in the NFL and then to build roads and bridges as a civil engineer. And he plays for defensive line coach Rodney Garner, known far and wide for his intense and demanding style.

“It was pretty hard when I first got here,” Derick said. “When I got here in the spring I wasn’t straining like he wants somebody to strain and wasn’t competing the way he wants somebody to compete.  It was pretty challenging. As things got going, I started adjusting. He’s a different guy. The way he coaches is different. His room is all about tough love, so he’s going to coach you hard but love you unconditionally.”

Derick’s mother has no problem with that. She knows her son can handle far more than any coach can demand.

“Coach G expects big things from him,” she said. “I always tell Coach G you have 100 percent of my support. I’m not a parent who cries to them when they are hard on him. I know they are hard on him for a reason. He will never get that from me. I told Coach G if you need me to put my foot on the back of his neck while you have the front, just give me a call. I love road trips.”

***

As Derick headed toward his senior season as a 4-star prospect, the recruiting pressure intensified. His mother and his uncle had attended Gulfport High School with Ole Miss coach Matt Luke. Ole Miss was the first program to offer. Mississippi State and others soon followed. But on Dec. 18 of last year, he committed to sign with Auburn. He enrolled in January and hasn’t looked back.
 

 “I took my first visit here,” Derick said. “Coach (Marcus) Woodson, Coach G, Coach (Kevin) Steele, Coach (Gus) Malzahn made it feel like home. I went around and talked to the academic people. They are really good. Everything is great here. I love the place, I love the people, I love the town. I fell in love with it. My family loves it, too.”

Derick’s mother admits that, at the outset of the recruiting process, she hoped he would sign with Ole Miss. She’d gone to high school with Luke, and her brother had played football with him and attested to his character. She saw it, too, when he recruited her son.

“I love Coach Luke and love his family, but at the end of the day Derick had to choose what was best for him,” she said. “And we are going to beat those Rebels this weekend.”

Gooden-Crandle, her husband Cedric Crandle and her daughter R’handa, a senior at Southern Mississippi, are Auburn folks through and through now.

“When he was being recruited, we sat down and talked about it,” his mother said. “Every time we talked about Auburn, he said it just feels right. It feels like home. He never second-guessed it. I don’t think he could have made a better decision. We love Auburn. We love the education they are providing him. It’s a family atmosphere and we love it.”

Even as Derick grew tall and strong, his mother didn’t consider that he might one day be an elite athlete. She was happy to see him healthy and thriving academically and socially. That began to change when she went to the high school during an open house to meet her daughter’s basketball coach. Derick, at 12 years old and headed to the eighth grade, stood 6-foot-2 and wore a size 13 shoe. He went along with his parents.

“The boys’ coach was there,” his mother said. “He kept saying ‘young man, what grade are you in?’ I didn’t know anything. I was in band. I was never a sports person. He said ‘you know you have something special?’ He was a straight-A student. I knew he was special.

“I would never have imagined God would have such a great future for him, especially athletically. He was always smart, a straight-A student. It’s so amazing. He was always a hard worker. I knew he had determination and grit. He had a goal, and with God’s help he got there.”

Hall on a visit to Auburn before he signed. (Photo: Jason Caldwell, 247Sports)
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 Derick arrived at Auburn like every other freshman, apprehensive and unsure. On the defensive line, he was surrounded by older players with elite talent. Getting playing time as a freshman seemed unlikely. But as he got into fall practice, Garner told him to be ready. And when his time came, with the help of his teammates, he was ready.

“I think it was just learning and locking in on how they did things,” Derick said, “Learning the way they do things, the way they do walkthroughs, the way they practice was huge.”

Derick played early, missed two games with an MCL and returned to the rotation. And he continued to watch and learn from older players who were always willing to help.

At a recent practice, star defensive end Marlon Davidson reached out.

“I kept slipping on the pass rush,” Derick said. “He came up to me and told me I was stepping with the wrong foot and cutting on the wrong foot. He stayed out about 10 minutes after practice and worked with me. It’s good to have guys that will take their time with you. Sitting back and watching those guys, asking questions and just learning from them is great to have.”

Derick was injured and watched from the sideline when Auburn beat Mississippi State 56-23 in its last home game on Sept. 28. Saturday, he will play for the first time against a home-state school.