SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. – When Kyler Trice woke up on Tuesday, February 13, 2024, he and his Shelbyville Central Golden Eagles teammates were scheduled to take a 90 minute bus ride that evening to Lincoln County High School and take on the Falcons in a win-or-go-home District 9-AAAA Quarterfinal matchup. 

Trice, a senior on the Golden Eagles basketball team, was coming off of a spirited 22-point performance on Senior Night just nine days prior in a 34-point win over district foe Spring Hill, 75-41, in his final game inside of Rick Insell Gymnasium. A loss at Columbia Central on the ensuing Friday night did little to damper the excitement of the upcoming district tournament, a competition that Trice and his teammates felt confident they would perform well despite their 6-20 (2-8) record on the season under first-year head coach, Shane Young, who also happened to be Trice’s third coach in four years.  

“Starting senior year, we were still bringing in Coach Young because he had just gotten there,” Trice recalled. “He got there like midway through the summer, so we didn’t have a summer workout with him. We basically started from scratch with him at the beginning of the season [Halloween]. We went through some growing pains, even though on paper as a squad I feel like that was the second best team we had outside of my sophomore year.” 

“We just couldn’t win close games that season. If we could have gotten over the hump of winning close games that season, we would have had a whole different record. I think we would have easily been in the 15-20 wins range easily.”

Shelbyville was also dealing with a season-long injury to someone who was expected to be a big contributor coming into the season in Joe Harris. 

“Joe [Harris] got hurt in maybe the fourth game of the season, and he never came back,” Trice recounts. “We missed a knock-down shooter who was capable of giving us 20 points any night if given the chance. At the very least he would have helped space the offense more.”

“It really hurt us because we’d have games – stretches of games even – with zero made threes, or just one or two made threes.”

Instead, as things stood, the Golden Eagles were the fifth-place team in a six-team district and would be going on the road in a must-win rematch against the Falcons, but they seemed to be finding their groove at just the right time to potentially play spoiler in the postseason. 

“Leading up to it, we thought we had ‘em in the bag easily,” said Trice. “I hate to sound that confident but we had just beat them at home by 13 [60-47], and we only lost to them on the road because we had a terrible first half. On top of that, we had Zyon [Bonner] just getting out of concussion protocol in time for that game.”

 Tip-off was at 6:00 p.m. due to it being the only game of the night. Perhaps invigorated by the early start, Trice came out setting the tone, aggressively attacking the basket and finding his shot as the Golden Eagles jumped out to a one-point lead after the first quarter, 18-17. Both teams slowed down offensively in the second quarter, but Lincoln County made a late push to take a one-point lead, 28-27, into the halftime locker room. Trice was on pace for another monster game for Shelbyville, leading the way with a team-high 12 points in the first half. 

Kyler Trice (4) drives to the basket during his senior season in 2023-24.

T-G Photo Archive

Unfortunately for the senior, there would be no second half. Moments after taking a seat for Young’s halftime talk, Trice fell unconscious and into cardiac arrest, collapsing in the locker room much to the shock and dismay of his teammates and coaches. 

“My teammates and my coaches said it was at halftime,” said Trice. “They said I was in the locker room and was perfectly fine. Because I have asked, and to a certain extent I do want to know, and they said I was acting fine then out of nowhere I just fell out. I can hardly believe it, even though I know it obviously happened, but I don’t know what happened.”

Fortunately, his head coach does remember the events from that fateful night.

“We go to the half, I see him [Kyler Trice] run off the court with some pep in his step thinking like we are going to win this game,” recalled Young. “So I go in, tell them good energy and good effort, and then I remember him leaning over. At first I thought it was Tae’Shawn [Shelton] because [Kyler] Trice was sitting right next to him, but then I realized he was leaning on Tae’Shawn and then he just fell down.” 

“I told Coach Reed to watch him, sent the players out, and went and got his parents because I knew he had asthma. When we sent the players out, I went to go ask for a medical professional because the CPR wasn’t working.”

“We were just trying to find anything that could help. It just happened so fast,” Young explained.

A frightening scene, something Young had never experienced before in his coaching career, was unfolding before his eyes as he raced to find anyone that could help. He knew time was not on his or Kyler’s side. 

“He was out for 15-20 minutes because I remember the nurse saying ‘We have a 17 year-old that’s been unconscious for about 15-20 minutes!’ but once we got into the ambulance, they were able to get him to the hospital pretty quickly.”

Arriving medical personnel quickly rushed him to the local Lincoln County Hospital where thankfully, Trice was stabilized and breathing again, albeit still unconscious.

“I don't remember anything from the 13th through the 16th,” Trice continued. “I can tell you I woke up on gameday morning, I can tell you I had to go see my baseball coaches before we went to walk-through, and that’s it.” 

“The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital bed.”

At this point, the last thing everyone involved cared about was the outcome of a high school basketball game. Well, almost everyone, that is.

“My parents said the first thing I asked when I woke up was what the score was,” Trice said. “I asked if we won and they told me that they were still playing. They said I was the most confused boy in the world trying to figure out what the score was and if we were still playing.”

As medical professionals began to run tests to try and figure out what exactly had happened, an anxious Nashika Trice, Kyler’s mother, and Kenneth Trice, his father, made sure that the doctors continued to pursue the discovery of the root cause of what had happened.

Eventually, the cause of Trice’s cardiac arrest was pinpointed, and it turned out to be a birth defect pertaining to coronary arteries around his heart. 

“His right Coronary artery was on the left side, functioning properly,” Nakisha Trice explained. 

This condition, called an Anomalous Coronary Artery, affects less than 1% of the population, and the majority of cases are not considered dangerous. However, as evidenced in Kyler’s situation, sometimes this artery can prevent oxygen-rich blood from reaching the heart itself.

“They said it was caused by a birth defect, and there was less than a 1% chance of what happened actually happening, and it happened to me,” Trice explained. “They said it could have happened anywhere so I should feel lucky that it happened with the people around that could get to me.”

“What they think happened that night was that he [Kyler] probably exerted himself too much, and it pinched the other arteries, cutting off blood flow,” Nakisha said.

Once the doctors figured out that was the cause, they quickly pushed to perform a surgery to move the artery to the correct side and ensure this never happened again.

“I hate to say it, but I didn’t want to get the surgery at all,” Trice admits. “If it wasn’t for my parents sitting up there in that hospital at 3 a.m. while the nurse is waiting for me to sign the paper, I would not have done it. I’d probably go the rest of my life with no cut in my chest, but my parents weren’t letting me leave the hospital until I had the surgery.”

The procedure was successfully performed the following Monday morning.

Both teams eventually finished the second half on the preceding Thursday, February 15th, but since Shelbyville ended up losing, 64-54, Trice’s attention post-surgery quickly turned to finding any way possible to get back out on the baseball diamond. As the starting centerfielder in the Golden Eagles run to the state sectional round the season prior under then second-year head coach Chase Jones, Trice was determined to find a way to get back out on the field.

“A day or two after surgery, the doctors said I probably wouldn’t be able to get out of bed and walk for like a week,” Trice remembers. “When I got up out of the bed soon after and walked around the floor of the hospital, everybody was shocked. So then, when I figured out I could do that and I proved to them that I could do it, in my head I was thinking, like, I WILL BE playing baseball. Me and my mom and my dad, we were like yea, you are getting back on the baseball field before it’s all said and done. It’s not in God’s plan for you not to.”

Trice’s high school basketball career was stunted by having three coaches in four years, but that was not the case with baseball. When Jones was hired before his sophomore year, the Golden Eagles were coming off of a 9-21 (2-8) season. Things actually got worse before they got better, as in Jones’ first season at the helm, Shelbyville regressed to 4-28 (2-8) in the 2022 campaign.

“When Coach Jones came in my sophomore year, he kinda changed things around, but we were just so young,” Trice remembers. “I think we had like two or three juniors playing and a freshman starting. That was a rough year, but I remember going through my sophomore year, every game that we were just getting beat down, Coach Jones was like ‘The way they’re treating us right now, they will not be ready for what comes next.’”

“At the time, it was kind of hard to believe him, but looking back on it, he was right! Because in my junior year, once we developed and got a year older, people really didn’t want to see us after the first two weeks once we figured out that we were actually good enough to play with everybody.”

Kyler Trice (blue) slides back safely to first base during his junior season in 2023.

T-G Photo Archive

Following the 4-28 season, Shelbyville started out 2023 by losing their first seven games. Then, after losing the first game of a two-game series against Franklin County, 4-3, the Golden Eagles took game two, 7-3, sparking a 13-game stretch where Shelbyville lost just twice, rocketing up the District 6-AAAA standings.

“When we were rolling it felt like we were all back playing rec ball again,” Trice said. “We all grew up playing with each other, that’s the thing, like everybody on that baseball team, we all played with each other growing up whether it was travel ball, rec ball, anything. So when we started getting on the roll that we went on, it was just like we were little kids having fun again on the rec field.” 

“We didn’t play to not lose because we knew we were going to win.”

After getting swept by Coffee County to close the regular season, Shelbyville won their first two games in the District Tournament to reach the District Final where they ultimately dropped both games to Coffee County, sending the Golden Eagles to Bradley Central for the Region 4-AAAA Tournament. After losing 10-2 in the first game, Shelbyville found themselves in the losers bracket against Coffee County. 

This time, Trice and the Golden Eagles dominated the Red Raiders, 10-4, and then upset Bradley Central, 3-2, to clinch second place in Region 4-AAAA and clinch a spot in the state sectional round. In a best-of-3 series at Stewarts Creek, Shelbyville split the first two games before falling in Game Three, coming up just one game short of an improbable State Tournament berth. 

Ultimately, Trice envisioned another potential postseason run with his boys, sparking his never-say-no attitude in an attempt to get back out on the field for his senior season. 

“Once I got out of the hospital, they put me on a defibrillator that I had to wear for a month, so for that month they said that I couldn’t run or do anything that would get my heart rate up because of what I had just gone through,” Trice explained.

“I went to physical therapy about two weeks after surgery. Since I had to wear the defibrillator for a month, I then went back for a monthly checkup. So at the checkup, we asked them if I could play, and they said I did look fine but they didn’t clear me yet. We asked them again if there was any way I could play, and they finally said I could take a stress test. If my heart was working normally, then they would clear me.”

“I was like, well if that’s all it takes then I’ll go on this treadmill and run for y’all. Hook me up to anything you want to hook me up to.”

Trice’s resilience ended up working out in his favor. After he passed the stress test with flying colors, the doctors eventually cleared him to play near the end of March just in time for the Viking Classic. In Shelbyville’s fourth of four games – they went a perfect 4-0 in the Classic – Trice finally made his long-awaited return on March 30, 2024, just over six weeks after his heart stopped beating in the visitor’s locker room inside of Lincoln County High School.

“That moment was surreal, something I’d never thought would happen to me,” Trice said after a long pause. “I don’t really know how to explain the feeling, but if you’ve ever experienced being in a spotlight or something, it felt like I was in the spotlight of everybody; everybody’s eyes were on me at that one moment.” 

“Even the umpires, they were telling the other team. Like when I went up to bat, me and the home-plate umpire – we know each other – was telling the catcher from the other team [Rocket City from Huntsville] ‘you don't understand what this kid has been through,’ and I was sitting there thinking like yea man, they don’t understand,” Trice said with a chuckle.

“The catcher was confused, like what’s the big deal about me coming up to bat because he ain’t played the whole game? He probably thought I was just some kid coming off the bench.”

Trice did not collect a hit, but it would not be the last time he stepped into the batter’s box. Of course, the next step in the progression would be to get back in the outfield.

“A week later we had a tournament at South Pittsburg, and Coach Jones said, ‘I’ll let you go out there and try it out and we’ll take little steps from there since it’s not a district game and there’s nothing really to risk except for your safety,’“ Trice recalled.

“To start out, he said he’d let me play half of the game and then we’ll see how you look, like a rehab assignment basically. But when I went out there, it just felt normal like I didn’t miss a beat, so when I first touched the field, I didn’t come off the field until the end of the season.”

“I didn’t feel like I was held back anymore.”

After Trice returned, Shelbyville started on an 8-game winning streak, and looked poised to make noise in district play. The Golden Eagles closed the regular season winning 11 of their final 13 games, and entered the District Tournament expecting to see similar results to the 2023 season.

“It [returning to the outfield] was great. It felt like a joy was brought back to me. Like that joy that was ripped away from me, it was put right back in my hands.” 

Despite the torrid end to the regular season, Shelbyville was stunned in the opening round of the District Tournament by Warren County, 7-6. The Golden Eagles staved off elimination in the rematch, 12-2, but the damage was already done. Now faced with having to run through the losers bracket and already down two starters from the first two games, Shelbyville was shut out, 9-0, coincidentally at Lincoln County, and just like that their season, and Trice’s career, was over.

“More or less, in that moment, I wasn’t as sad as I was a week later. In the moment, I was more or less just happy that I was out there just even to be playing. It more so kicked in that it was over after I graduated because even after it was over I was just happy to be a part of stuff still. I wasn’t sad as much as I was happy to be back out there being with them.”

After staring death in the face and still coming back to play sports again, Trice’s newfound perspective was priceless. To this day, he still expresses the sincerest gratitude towards everyone who supported him through what has been one of the toughest years of his life, especially his baseball family, his immediate family, and God.

“Coach Jones and my whole baseball family meant a lot to me,” Trice said. “If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know if I would have been strong enough to even play again because when I had surgery, in my head I was like I don’t know if I even want to go try. Then I got home, and maybe like two days later they had a scrimmage, and the amount of love I got from everyone when I walked out there, I was like I gotta do it for them. Like if it were one of them in this situation, they’d do it for me, yanno?”

In the end, Trice did make it back out on the field, inspiring everyone around him and his team. However, his story didn’t end with graduation, it merely just began. 

“I can’t lie, the past year has been a rough year,” Trice said cautiously. “Mentally, obviously I’ve been fighting with what I’ve gone through, it’s hard to take in that I don’t remember. But this year has also helped me with my faith because I’ve had to really trust in God this past year and put it in His hands. 

“That’s one of my go-to things to say now, that I’m in God’s hands because if it wasn’t for Him, I wouldn’t be here. He did all of this for a reason, that’s how I look at it now. My family has been my base as well. Alongside God, my family has been right there with me. If ever I need to talk to them, they’re right there. They’ve been there through thick and thin. If I ever need to talk or cope, just being in the presence of my family instead of being alone helps so much,” he continued.

“I probably think about it every day. I can’t say I don’t. I probably think about it five times a day just because I want to understand it,” Trice continued. I’m the type of person who wants to understand everything, like how stuff works, so I want to understand why this happened, but at the same time, I don’t.”

Trice also expressed an unexpected frustration that came from his situation. He appreciates every ounce of support shared, that is a given. However, in his mind, there is a fine line between supporting and prying for information to satisfy one’s own curiosity.

“I don’t think people notice the fact that you’d never know. Like people don’t know that I don’t know. It’s like asking somebody about a dead person. It doesn’t sit right with me because most of the time people aren’t coming from a place where they want to help me. They’re coming from a place of just wanting to know what happened or how I felt just for yourself,” he explained. 

“‘Wasn’t that you on February 13th?’ like I hate that. I hate it with a passion because I’m more of a person than that, you know?”

Fortunately, things haven’t all been negative. Trice is currently attending Motlow, and he hopes to transfer to either MTSU or UT-Chattanooga after he gets his Associates degree to pursue a Bachelors in the Sports Medicine field. Also, he has noticed an improvement in his physical health, even from before his surgery.

“Since surgery, I’d say my physical health has been way better. I don’t want to say that the surgery was like the cure for everything that happened to me sickness-wise because I don’t know for sure yet, but I would say that I haven’t been getting sick nearly as much,” he explained. “I don’t want to say that was the cause for all the physical problems in my life because I don’t know for sure, but I do want to say that my physical health has been way better since. I’ve been going to the gym way more consistently just trying to make sure I’m up to par. I don’t want to slack off and then I got the surgery for no reason because the whole reason I didn’t want the surgery was because I was already in good shape, so I don’t want my not being in shape to cause something else.”

Physical health, mental health, and spiritual health for Trice have all fluctuated in the months since, but as the one-year anniversary comes and goes, one focus has risen above everything else.

“I give all the glory to God, that’s the last thing I’ll say,” he concluded. 

“Everything I do is in his name.”