Sid Ortis, 16 years old, is waiting to die.
That’s a grim truth for the teenager from Mountain Brook, Ala., who has bone cancer and is now in hospice care, slowly succumbing to the horrible disease.
Surrounded by his family, there’s one other man that seems to care deeply about Ortis as well: LSU coach Les Miles.
Miles reportedly called Ortis in March to pray with him, hosted Ortis as his box-seat guest at a September game and then called again this week, according to AL.com.
Reportedly, the conversation included this heart-wrenching line: “Life is not how long you live, but how well you live it. When you get to Heaven, save a spot for me.”
Here’s video of Les Miles talking football with Ortis.
If the teenager remains alive on Nov. 7, he’ll be an invited guest to the Alabama-LSU game. But Ortis’ parents say that the 16-year-old is at peace.
“It’s not morose, it’s like a party,” his mom told AL.com about the mood at the house. “Sid’s not sad. He said he’s not scared. He said he would see us again.”
An itinerant journalist, Christopher has moved between states 11 times in seven years. Formally an injury-prone Division I 800-meter specialist, he now wanders the Rockies in search of high peaks.
