As Clemson Football announced on May 19, Clemson redshirt sophomore defensive tackle Hevin Brown-Shuler is undergoing treatment following confirmation of a Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis.

Brown-Shuler and Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney met with the media on Tuesday to discuss his diagnosis, health outlook and more.

“I’m just blessed to have the support of my coaches and teammates,” Brown-Shuler said. “Blessed to be here today, just to put a face to a name, and let everybody know that I am OK, and that I will be back next season. Come back with a vengeance next season to do what I was recruited to do, and that’s play football.”

“Just getting our arms around this news,” Swinney added. “This is not news that anybody wants to get.”

Brown-Shuler committed to Clemson in April 2023 as a four-star prospect in the 2024 recruiting class according to multiple recruiting services. He was ranked as a top-150 national prospect and the country’s sixth-best defensive tackle by Rivals.

Brown-Shuler – a four-time all-region and all-state honoree at Pace Academy in Atlanta — enrolled at Clemson in the summer of 2024. He redshirted his first season at Clemson in 2024, while recording five tackles in 49 defensive snaps over four games. As a redshirt freshman in 2025, he played 57 defensive snaps and registered one tackle across three games.

Brown-Shuler had been on a typical career trajectory for a redshirt sophomore, so the news of his cancer diagnosis was certainly unexpected.

“This is something that we did not know about,” Swinney said. “Obviously, spring game and exit meetings, and we kind of had our plan of what we were going to do this summer, as Hev and I met and kind of laid it all out. Typical kind of path for a player. You redshirted, redshirt freshman year, kind of making some strides. Got a chance to play a lot in the bowl game. Feel good about what he’s done this spring and spring game. Now here we go, redshirt sophomore, big year, and then, man, I get a tough call from [Clemson Director of Football Athletic Training] Pat Richards. Really tough call, to let me know what was going on.”

In late April, Brown-Shuler went to the emergency room, where he was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma after doctors discovered a mass in his chest.

Brown-Shuler and Swinney each shared the details of what led to Brown-Shuler going to get checked out.

Brown-Shuler knew something was off when he experienced chest pains and was having a hard time making it through workouts.

“It started off as like a cough. I thought it was a common cold,” Brown-Shuler said. “I thought maybe the weather was changing, spring. I’ve got bad allergies. I was like, OK. And then the cough didn’t stop, and it turned into more like chest pains, and that turned into struggling to get through workouts. I’ve never been a guy that’s had a problem getting through a workout. So, when that started happening, I was like, OK, something’s definitely wrong. I probably need to go say something. At first, they kind of checked for like pneumonia or something like that, to see if I had something weird going on. And then [I’m] blessed that Dr. [Len] Reeves, [he said] your symptoms aren’t getting any better. He told me to go to the ER, and that’s when we found out.”

“He basically had not been feeling well and was throwing up and was having a hard time finishing the workout, and they couldn’t really figure it out,” Swinney said. “So, they took him to the emergency room. But they found a mass, and so this is a tough call. Now we’ve got a biopsy and there’s a lot of things, and then you get the news.”

Swinney added that “it will be a long year ahead” for Brown-Shuler amid treatment and recovery, but the “prognosis is good” and they’re “very optimistic with the path forward.”

Brown-Shuler began chemotherapy last week, and he was able to work out with his teammates Tuesday when the Tigers started mandatory training.  

“He’s met with a bunch of different doctors, and the doctors have been amazing,” Swinney said. “They’re all on the same page of the path forward and what he needs to do. It will be a long year ahead for him, but the prognosis is good. It’s a lot that he’s got to go through, and I’m thankful that he has such a great community and family here. In fact, he started back today, working out as well, and the doctors have a plan on what they want him to do as he goes through this next year. He started chemo last week, so he’s got about six months or so of chemotherapy, and then we’ll go from there.”

“We’re very optimistic with the path forward, but that doesn’t make the path easy,” Swinney continued. “There’s going to be a lot of tough days, and there will be some good days. But his team has rallied around him, and again, feel good about the path forward and what he’s got to do.”

Brown-Shuler will miss all of the 2026 season, but Swinney said the team will apply for a medical redshirt for Brown-Shuler to preserve his three remaining years of college eligibility.

“He’s got three years left of eligibility, and we’re going to try to keep it that way,” Swinney said. “Obviously he’s going to be out this year, but we are going to try to apply for a medical this summer.”

Swinney has said that he hopes when the 2027 season rolls around, Brown-Shuler will be healthy and back on the field as “one of the great comeback stories in college football.”

Swinney looks forward to celebrating with Brown-Shuler, a year from now, after he triumphs over the cancer.

“I really believe God is going to bless this young man in a tremendous way,” Swinney said. “I told him, I was like, ‘You thought everybody would know you because you were a great D-tackle at Clemson. But everybody’s going to know you because of this situation. But so many people will be blessed by how you handle this situation.’

“So again, a long year ahead, and this time next year, we’re going to be having a celebration as he’s beat this and he’s back doing what he loves to do.”