(Miami Gardens, FL) – Drew Shouse got his moment on college football’s biggest night.
The 10-year-old South Decatur student from the Westport area was in Miami Monday night for the national championship, where he watched Indiana University win the first football title in school history — a milestone he got to experience not from a couch, but from the stadium.
Shouse, who was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome and has undergone multiple open-heart surgeries, has spent much of his life fighting battles far bigger than any scoreboard.
In recent years, he’s also built a special connection with the IU football program through Team IMPACT, the national nonprofit that matches children facing serious illness or disability with college athletic teams — giving kids the chance to feel like part of something bigger than the medical world they’re used to living in.
That bond turned into a once-in-a-lifetime invitation when IU quarterback Fernando Mendoza and other Hoosiers players delivered a personal message: if the team was going to the national championship, Drew needed to be there too.
For a kid who has spent years defined by surgeries, recovery, and routine, the chance to watch Indiana raise the trophy in person wasn’t just a sports trip — it was a memory the Shouse family will carry forever.
