Baseball is a big deal at East Carolina University.
The Pirates are playing in the NCAA Tournament for the eighth time in the past nine seasons this weekend as they host regionals in Greenville. Last year, ECU drew an average of more than 4,400 fans per game, which was the 13th highest attendance in all of Division I college baseball. The outfield at ECU is called "The Jungle" for the rowdy and proud fans that cheer from beyond the fence.
But it’s possible that Clark-LeClair Stadium has never been louder than it was in the bottom of the eighth inning on Feb. 16 this season. With ECU holding an 11-2 lead against visiting Rider University, head coach Cliff Godwin signaled for a pinch-hitter. The loudspeakers in the stadium pumped out the iconic beat from Dr. Dre’s 1999 hit, “Still D-R-E,” which begins with the hip-hop maestro saying, “Guess who’s back?”
Parker Byrd stepped to the plate and was greeted by a standing ovation. It was a moment he had waited a long time for — one that seemed unthinkable after a boating accident nearly two years prior — but he remained patient as he settled into the batter’s box.
Byrd drew a walk in five pitches, making him just the second-ever amputee to play in a Division I college baseball game, and the first since 1989, when Greg Dunn featured for New Mexico.
“That was a really cool moment, just because I never thought I would get a standing ovation and there I was,” Byrd said. “It was really a lot of emotions. But I was preparing for that moment for a year and a half, so it was kind of easy to lock back in once it was go-time.”
Godwin and East Carolina offered Byrd a scholarship to play baseball for the Pirates when he was in the ninth grade at Scotland High School in Laurinburg, North Carolina. The son of ECU graduates, he committed on the spot.
Byrd spent his high school career dreaming of stepping to the plate in Clark-LeClair Stadium wearing his No. 16 uniform — a number he chose as a homage to his favorite player growing up, former Atlanta Braves’ catcher Brian McCann — for the purple and gold. The day that Byrd finally did, it had been 19 months since the accident that led to him losing his right leg below the knee. As he made the trot from home plate to first base, he thought about what doctors said to him as he laid in a hospital bed.
“I mean, a year and a half ago, they told me I may not ever walk again,” Byrd said. “So, those 90 feet were probably the best 90 feet of my life.”
'Hey, if you pass out, you might not wake up'
The day Byrd's life changed was July 23, 2022. And Byrd vividly remembers every single detail about it.
“I was kind of hyper-aware,” Byrd recalls. “Just because I kept telling myself, ‘Hey, if you pass out, you might not wake up.’”
Byrd and some of his new ECU teammates had gone down to Bath Creek, just 40 miles east of Greenville, for a weekend on the water. Byrd and his friends went tubing — where a boat pulls a large innertube around the water at high speeds with a rope. After he and teammate Dixon Williams fell off the tube a second time, they started making their way back to the boat, and Byrd was using the rope to pull himself in. When Byrd got about 10 yards away, things went horribly wrong when the driver accidently went in reverse.
“Essentially, he ended up running me over,” Byrd said. “Hit both of my legs and my left hand as well.”
Byrd’s teammates jumped into the water and pulled him into the boat, but he was losing blood.
“They were tying tourniquets around my legs as best they could with their shirts,” Byrd said.
Others on the boat dialed 911 and tried to wave down other vessels for help. Byrd remembers that the first boat that pulled up offered a first-aid kit, but nothing more because the family said it didn’t want to expose their kids to the gruesome scene.
“A first-aid kit wasn’t really going to help in that moment,” Byrd said.
His friends were able to wave down a second boat, and the only reason why that boat was heading back to the marina, Byrd says, is because two people onboard had gotten into an argument and decided to end their day on the water. The boat stopped for Byrd’s friends though, and one of the people aboard happened to be a nurse. They got Byrd transferred to the second boat where the nurse tied proper tourniquets, and made their way to the marina where an ambulance took Byrd to a hospital in Washington, North Carolina. Soon after, a helicopter took him to the ECU Health Medical Center in Greenville.
“I think, on the helicopter, my blood pressure was like 60 over 30, and that's after they gave me like all the blood products that they had on the helicopter that day,” Byrd said. “So, I was definitely knocking on the door.
“There was definitely a little fear there, but, I mean, if it was my time, it was my time. I was pretty content with whatever was going to happen. … I was scared, but I tried not to focus on it too much.”
'Why can't it be me?'
Over the next 45 days, Byrd underwent 22 surgeries.
A turning point during that stretch was on Aug. 4. It had been 12 days since the boating accident and Byrd’s right foot was turning pale and cold. That’s when he heard a doctor say the word “amputate” for the first time.
Byrd said doctors presented him with two options: "Option A, we can continue the medicine we have you own now, and the infection can potentially spread to your kidneys and your lungs and you’ll basically end up dying. Or Option B, we can just amputate your right lower extremity."
In Byrd’s mind, the latter seemed like the only realistic choice.
“So, I chose option B and just kept rolling with life,” Byrd said.
Through all the surgeries and visits with doctors, all Byrd kept thinking about was baseball. It was the first question his dad had for the doctors — would he ever be able to play again? At one time, Byrd was ranked as one of the 20 best high school baseball prospects in the state of North Carolina. In addition to ECU, Duke, N.C. State, Virginia Tech, and Coastal Carolina wanted him, too.
But he wondered, after having his right leg amputated below his knee, would he ever play again? Byrd never knew of any baseball players with prosthetic legs. At one point, he turned to his mother, worried he wouldn’t take the field again. She simply said to him, why not you?
“Why can't it be me? So, (I) didn’t look back since that day,” Byrd said. “Just knowing that God has a plan for all of us. And just because it's not the plan that you think, that doesn't mean that's a bad plan.”
'I would never bet against Parker Byrd'
When Byrd got out of the hospital, he would go to the batting cage at ECU and park his wheelchair in the batter’s box and watch balls from the pitching machine zoom by. That evolved into him sitting on a shower stool and swinging at balls from the machine using just his upper body.
Byrd got his first prosthetic in December 2022, then a better one more specifically suited for sports a few months later, thanks to a grant from the Challenged Athletes Foundation. By March 2023, using that prosthetic, he was swinging away without any assistance. About a year later he started staring down pitches in meaningful games for the Pirates.
This season, Byrd has had three at-bats, but still has a major role on the team, says Godwin, the head baseball coach. An ECU graduate himself, Godwin was one of the first people to arrive at the hospital on the day of Byrd’s accident and has — without hesitation — continued to honor the scholarship he offered Byrd as a high schooler.
“He’s an inspiration,” Godwin said. “The guy comes out here every single day just like every one of our other players does. I hold him to the same standard. ... He gives our guys perspective; just how hard he works and how far he’s come in a year.”
Byrd has gained some popularity and stardom since his first collegiate at-bat. He’s been on Good Morning America, was featured on ESPN, received a Tweet from billionaire Mark Cuban, and even got a phone call from former President Donald Trump.
Because of all the public speaking opportunities and interview requests Byrd has received during his recovery, he’s added a communications minor to his studies at East Carolina University, making him a bit more comfortable with what he feels is now his new purpose in life.
“I know my story can reach millions of people. And if just one person gets inspired from it and gets saved, I think that's essentially the goal,” Byrd says. “So, just using it for the good.”
In addition to speaking on behalf of the Challenged Athletes Foundation and providing a little bit of hope to whoever he can, Byrd is still working on getting as close as he can to the baseball player he used to be. He’ll play this summer for the New Bern Southpaws, a team in North Carolina's collegiate summer league. Byrd aims to become a regular everyday hitter and fielder for East Carolina in the coming seasons.
“I would never bet against Parker Byrd,” Godwin said. “Anyone that bets against him, they’re not very smart, because that guy is an unbelievable worker and he doesn’t believe he can’t not play at the Division I level at a high capacity, and that’s special.”
So, what’s next for Parker Byrd?
“Omaha, hopefully,” he said with a confident smile.
That’s where the annual College World Series is held. Despite all of ECU’s success in baseball — which includes four regional championships and five conference titles since 2015, when Godwin took over — the Pirates have never been on the sport's biggest stage in Nebraska.
Byrd will do everything in his power to help the Pirates get there.
