Brady Williams knew something was wrong.

The then-freshman at Ann Arbor Pioneer was in class when he texted his parents that something wasn’t right. His mom, Tiffany, rushed to the school, got Brady into the car and drove straight to the emergency room in Ann Arbor.

His father, Greg, arrived a few minutes later.

“He was in heart failure,” said one of the doctors who was caring for Brady, then 14.

When he went home from C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital nearly six weeks later, Brady was the proud owner of a new heart.

“It was really random,” Williams recalled. “One day I wasn’t feeling good at school, so I left and went to the doctors. They kept me for a couple of days and told me I needed to get a heart transplant.”

It’s been an incredible journey for the Pioneer sophomore, who returned to school last fall and is now on the Pioneers junior varsity golf team.

“I can do basically everything now,” he says. “I’m back up to normal for sure.”

Normal is something Williams had rarely known. Even as a young boy he would occasionally get tired from doing simple things. As the family learned to deal with it, they decided at one point to seek more medical advice. After genetic testing, at the age of 7 he was diagnosed with a rare neuromuscular disease, known as limb-girdle muscular dystrophy.

“It basically makes the muscles weak, especially your heart,” he said.

As he got older, he was would sometimes struggle with the effects.

“We carried an AED (automated external defibrillator) with us everywhere,” Tiffany Williams said.

He tried playing sports, including basketball, and golfed regularly. In the months leading up to the heart transplant, though, Brady had slowed down.

“I was playing basketball and golfing four times a week,” Brady said. “Slowly I stopped playing basketball and even golf because I was getting really tired.”

Under the care of Dr. Mark Russell, Dr. Aaron Stern – a professor of pediatric cardiology at University of Michigan – and Dr. Kurt Robert Schumacher, the medical director for the pediatric heart transplant program at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, Brady at first had a temporary device installed in his heart, but it was quickly determined that a heart transplant was needed – and fast.

“They didn’t think it would be this bad, but it ended up hurting my heart so bad that I had to get a new one,” Williams said.

After the decision was made to move forward with the heart transplant, he waited only two days for the new heart.

“They put me at the top of the list, and they got it there quick, thankfully,” Williams said.

His passion for sports has always been a driving force. A football fanatic, he is a die-hard Cleveland Browns fan. His favorite quarterback, former Browns signal-caller Baker Mayfield, sent him a video message while he was recovering. Former Eastern Michigan University and current Las Vegas Raiders star Maxx Crosby also reached out to him.

In the hospital, Williams was glued to the television.

“Everyone took to Brady,” Tiffany Williams said. “He helped everyone with fantasy football teams while he was in the hospital, plus Michigan won the national championship. So that was a good year.”

His recovery included several months of physical therapy and doctor visits. At first, Brady had to attend school virtually, but returned to the halls of Pioneer in the fall.

“I feel like honestly better than I ever have,” Williams said. “This is a really good heart, a lot better than the one I was born with. This is like 100 percent. My old one, I never lived at like a 100-percent level. It was always low.

“I don’t even notice anything. It’s just normal all of the time.”

This spring he was cleared to golf after a physical. He is able to use a cart during his matches and tournaments, something he said helps him a lot.

“This is what I really wanted – just to join the team and get back to how I used to be – hanging out with friends and making new ones,” Brady said. “That’s the best part about being on a team.”

Being part of a team was at one point something Brady didn’t think he would get to experience. He knows how fortunate he is to have that opportunity again.

“I realize that everything can get taken away from you easily,” he said. “One second you can be at the highest point and the next you can be at the lowest. I’m definitely at the highest right now after making the golf team, being on it and having a lot of fun with it.”

Doug Donnelly has served as a news and sports reporter at the Adrian Daily Telegram and the Monroe News for 30 years, including 10 years as city editor in Monroe. He's written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. He is now publisher and editor of The Blissfield Advance, a weekly newspaper. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.