Freshman Rylie Kuyper was anxiously awaiting one game all season long: LSU versus Texas Tech. Or in her world, her new soccer team versus her old.
The week it arrived, so did a lymphoma diagnosis.
The goalkeeper transferred to LSU this season after redshirting the 2025 season with the Red Raiders. She didn’t expect to face her old team during her career with the Tigers, Texas Tech popped up on the schedule.
“I was really nervous,” Kuyper said. “It would be like showing up with a new boyfriend to see your ex-boyfriend.”
But as the match got closer, Kuyper got excited to see her best friends and teammates from Texas Tech. Then came the diagnosis, days before the scheduled game.
With stitches in her side from the biopsy test, she wasn’t sure she would be able to play in the game, but she still wanted to attend. After the doctor cautioned her about being on the travel bus for too long, Kuyper and her mom took the road trip to Dallas themselves.
The night before the game, Kuyper’s roommate for the weekend, Amy Smith, asked if she was excited for the match. Then Smith asked if she was excited to start the game.
“I’m like, ‘Start? What do you mean?’” Kuyper said .
Head coach Sian Hudson was allowing Kuyper to start the game and have the team pass the ball back to her, a typical routine when honoring a player in soccer matches.
But that wasn’t the only special moment.
Before the game, Hudson pulled Kuyper aside and told her that the team had made T-shirts in her honor and that both LSU and Tech would be wearing them for warm-up.
When it was time for the game, both teams, dressed in green bows to represent lymphoma awareness, walked out and lined up. They honored Kuyper, talked about her recent diagnosis and then called out the rosters.
As the whistle blew, the ball went back to Kuyper, who played it up to Smith before getting subbed out. She spent the rest of the game on the sidelines, watching her best friends from both teams play each other.
“Watching that game was honestly so special because it’s all the people who have impacted my life over the past, basically, year and a half,” Kuyper said.
When the match ended in a 1-1 tie, both teams met in center field to pray for Kuyper’s journey, led by Texas Tech midfielder Skylar Haase.
“It just showed that sports were so much bigger than just how good you are at it,” said Kuyper.
In a recent matchup against Northwestern State, Kuyper was given a gift basket from the team in support of her recovery. She has also received personal messages from players on the West Virginia soccer team, and the Mississippi State goalkeeper crew repped green bows for Kuyper.
Beyond the soccer support, softball player Alix Franklin supported Kuyper by wearing a green bow and green eye-black. The other day, Kuyper said she received a gift basket from the beach volleyball team.
Over the past couple of weeks, Kuyper has been dealt life-changing news and has had to navigate it at a young age. But she wasn’t alone. She was met with a wave of support from those around her.
“When I get hard news, my teammates say, ‘We’re gonna stand with you,’ and seeing these girls who have only known me for three months and be as kind as they are … it’s awesome,” Kuyper said.
She said she’s grateful for her coaches, teammates and those who have shown support, noting this experience has grown her appreciation for LSU and its community.
In a time when an athlete needed it most, the sports community looked past stats and trophies and looked into supporting them.
In the next two weeks, Kuyper is hopeful to begin chemotherapy, with the treatment lasting up to six months. For her team, which she will continue to support from the sidelines, they face UL-Lafayette and Houston this Saturday for their last spring exhibition games.
