NFL: Seahawks’ Derick Hall was given a 1% chance to live when he was born prematurely at 23 weeks

Derick Hall wasn’t meant to make it to the NFL…but through resilience, tenacity and perseverance he somehow made it – an incredible feat considering the linebacker was only given a one percent chance at birth to live.

The 22-year-old Hall was drafted second round (37th overall) by the Seattle Seahawks after impressing at Auburn, where he was named a 2022 first-team All-SEC. sacks and 60 tackles during the last season of his college career.

But none of that would have happened without his mother believing her son would turn out to be a fighter. Hall was born 23 weeks premature in Gulfport, Mississippi, in 2001 and was dead at birth — with no heartbeat before being resuscitated.

Weighing just two pounds and an ounce at birth, with a brain hemorrhage, the NFL player spent a week on life support. Believing he was likely to be in a permanent vegetative state, doctors advised Stacey Gooden-Crandle, Hall’s mother, to go off life support, but she refused.

“The doctors wanted me to let nature take its course,” Gooden-Crandle once told Auburn Undocver. “We decided we wanted to fight for him.”

Seahawks linebacker was born 23 weeks premature and died (with no heartbeat)

Doctors struggled to survive and advised Hall’s mother against keeping her son on a ventilator

“We just trusted God with all our hearts, and look what we’ve got now,” said Stacey, Hall’s mother.

“They said he would never walk or talk,” she added. “They said he would just be a vegetable. He would be 85 percent mentally retarded. He would have no quality of life. They said, “We shouldn’t try to save this baby.”

Hall was finally able to go home with his family five months after being cared for in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) while addicted to a ventilator. But his mother didn’t necessarily know if that was the end of her newborn son’s health problems.

“A young woman being told all this, I was scared,” Gooden-Crandle recalls. “I didn’t know if I could support this boy financially.

“I didn’t know if I was prepared for the things I was told. We just trusted God with all our hearts, and look what we’ve got now.”

In his early years, Hall would be hospitalized frequently and suffered from asthma. He started playing flag football when he was four, but knew he would be limited in both games and practices due to a health deficit, although that gave him a sense of resilience and perseverance that helped him rise to the top of American football . .

“The earliest I remember is being 4 or 5 years old and having an asthma attack,” Hall told Auburn Undercover. “I was in hospital for three weeks. Going through all that at a young age, going on ventilators and treatments and things like that, going through all that every year at a young age has really put me in a position to learn how to fight, compete and face adversity.”

Hall began playing flag football when he was four, but was limited in games and practice

At Auburn, Hall was named second-team All-SEC in 2021 and first-team All-SEC in 2022

Hall had his head in his hands in disbelief when he learned he had been drafted by Seattle

Hall was a standout athlete in football, basketball, and track and field at Gulfport High School. He was among the highest-rated football players in Mississippi in 2018 and even had offers from Division I to play college basketball despite often needing inhalers as a teenager.

Hall’s lungs still don’t function as well as normal for his age, although that never stopped him from pursuing his passion.

“It was definitely hard,” he recalls. “Watching everyone run while I was coughing up a lung over there, that was pretty hard.”

“I have the lungs of a 13- or 14-year-old child,” Hall added. “Trying to overcome those obstacles through hard work and dedication and dedication started at a young age until now. That brought me to where I am now.’

Hall doesn’t often use an inhaler these days. During his four years at Auburn, where he developed an interest in civil engineering, he only occasionally needed a breather.

The linebacker could have plied his trade at Mississippi State or Ole Miss, but cited his relationship with Tigers assistant coach Rodney Garner as the main reason for his commitment.

“I never imagined that God would have such a great future for him, especially in the athletic field. He was always smart, a straight-up student. It’s so great. He was always a hard worker. I knew he had determination and perseverance,” said Gooden-Crandle. “He had a goal and with God’s help he got there.”

Seattle’s newest defensive player has a close relationship with his mother, whom he calls his “queen.”

As a freshman and sophomore at Auburn, Hall recorded a total of 34 tackles and 3.5 sacks. He became a starter as a junior, where he recorded a total of 52 tackles and nine sacks, earning a second-team All-SEC nomination in 2021 before joining conference first-team honors a year later .

The newest addition to the Seahawks defense said he is grateful to his mother and stepfather, Cedric Crandle, and all the help and support they provided during his journey to the NFL.

“My mother is my queen,” Hall said. “She’s everything to me, no matter how hard she worked to raise two kids on her own and work two or three jobs. God blessed me with a wonderful stepfather. I call him my father, not my stepfather.’

Hall is confident he can flourish where the Seahawks tie him up, having played all over the field in college. He looks forward to bringing his leadership to the team’s locker room after serving as team captain at Auburn last season, despite knowing he will be a rookie.

“That was definitely much more important for me to have, knowing that my teammates had chosen me to help be a leader on that team,” Hall said of his senior year at Auburn.

“I feel like I’m a guy who could be in that role and flourish, and I feel like I’m the guy to help that team get better. Just keep growing.’