NIU’s Javan Lee doesn’t know how it happened. Neither does anyone else.

Trying out for football his freshman year at Michigan City High School, Lee found out he would never be able to play sports because of a brain lesion he had since birth.

A year later, he tried out again. He took the same tests with the same doctors, but got different results.

“I had the CAT scans and all the tests, but then the doctor tells me that the scar is totally healed,” Lee said. “[The doctor] said there was no explanation for how it healed, but I was cleared to play.”

Fast-forward six years to the Bowling Green game Friday. Lee, now the Huskies’ starting weak-side linebacker, records a career-high 15 tackles and is to be named the MAC Defensive Player of the Week for his performance.

For Lee, it was just one of his goals fulfilled. For his coach, it was hopefully a show of things to come.

“That guy is a budding star, and that game really showed how excellent he can be,” coach Joe Novak said. “I know he appreciates the opportunity to play, and he is turning into a serious playmaker.”

But No. 47 isn’t worrying about what will come in the future. Instead, Lee has something much closer to home to worry about.

In 2001, Lee’s mom, Rhonda, suffered an aneurysm and had to be flown to the hospital, where doctors performed emergency surgery. The surgery was a success, Lee said, but it was not without consequences, as his mother lost almost 20 years of her memory and part of her short-term memory.

“It affects me every day,” Javan said. “It tears me apart to be here when my mom is back in Indiana. It’s a struggle, but I know my parents want me to graduate and that’s what keeps me here.”

And as long as he plays here, his dad, Willie, will be in the stands to cheer him on, just as he has ever since Lee first put on a uniform back in high school.

It’s knowing his dad – who was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1973 – is in the stands that gives Lee most of his motivation to keep focusing on football and school.

“He is my backbone for when I play,” Lee said, who first found out his sophomore year in high school that his father played in the NFL. “My dad used to play football, but he never forced me to play. He has always let me make my own decisions.”

The only decision Lee’s parents have made for him is to graduate from NIU.

Even with all his accomplishments on and off the field, Willie will be proudest of his son when he gets to see him with a diploma in his hand. Until that time, every accolade is just an extra, he said.

“When Javan was born, doctors thought he would be handicapped, so to see him with that diploma – that’s better than any football award he can get,” Willie said. “When Javan graduates NIU, he will have proved every doctor wrong and accomplished more than anyone else thought possible. And it’s that thought that gets me excited.”