AUSTIN, Texas — When Damar Hamlin collapsed on a football field in early January, it stunned sports fans across the country. His near death during a game impacted a lot of people. For Peter Mpagi, it hit close to home because that could have been him.

Mpagi was a great high school football player at Richmond George Ranch. He was rated a 3-star defensive end prospect and signed with the University of Texas in December 2018.

“Throughout my whole life I’ve been a Texas fan,” Mpagi said. “Whenever I was doing my recruitment, the only school I wanted to go to was Texas.”

He was redshirted during his first year at Texas, 2019. He was planning to use that time as a learning experience and be ready to make his mark on the team next season.

“I always go against the first team offense and it always made me better,” Mpagi said of his time at practice. “The next year I knew was my year and I knew I could compete.”

Towards the end of 2019 he began noticing that he couldn’t compete at the level he was used to and had trouble getting through workouts.

“I couldn’t even do the warm-up, and it’s easier with pads on,” Mpagi recalled. “I was just dying.”

Mpagi eventually went to the doctor and a chest X-ray showed that he had an enlarged heart. He then went to a clinic to run on a treadmill to test if his heart was still working right but that test never happened.

“I didn’t even do it because they knew something was wrong immediately,” said Mpagi. “So I was rushed to the hospital.”

“We realized how serious it was in 2020,” said Ruth Katto, Mpagi’s mother. “The doctor let us know the heart was enlarged and it might get better but they were not sure.”

Knowing that and going with the advice of doctors, Mpagi made the tough decision to retire from football in 2020.

“I bawled tears because like my whole dream was shattered,” Mpagi said.

Just because he had stopped playing football didn’t mean that his heart was getting any better. He spent countless hours in hospitals and doctors offices over the next year or so until the reality of the situation came to a necessary path forward.

“They were like we’re probably going to do a heart transplant,” Mpagi said. “I remember crying because I don’t want to leave the heart that I was born with.”

The next step was finding a heart that was a match. Easier said than done when you need a heart from someone similar in size to Mpagi, who is 6-foot-3-inches tall and 230 pounds. 

“Those were the worst days. [We were thinking], how long are we going to wait?” Katto said. 

Nurses told the family that finding the right heart could take six months to a year. During that time, Mpagi’s health was deteriorating. He had trouble eating and was spending extended time in the hospital. But finally a call came that changed his life.

“Someone called. It was a Houston number so I answered,” Mpagi recalled. “They’re like telling me I got my heart. I was crying and feeling really good because my life was about to change in a good way. It was one of the best moments of my life.”

The new heart would only survive a matter of hours so immediate surgery would be needed. There was some nervous time spent waiting to see if the heart was a match. It was and the transplant was a success.

“I had to touch and see — is that really beating?” said Katto. “He’s like, yeah it’s beating, you know you’re fine.”

With his new heart in place, Mpagi was able to begin a long recovery process.

“You got to learn how to walk together and breathe again and all that,” said Mpagi. “Learning how to do all that stuff again took a toll on me. The first time they wanted me to walk, I had like no strength at all.”

Mpagi is over six months post surgery, walking and moving around much better now. He was able to be on the sidelines for a lot of UT football games last fall and be around his former teammates. He is even thinking of pursuing a career in football off the field. One thing that is very important to him is hopefully seeing the family of the person whose heart now beats inside of him.

“I thank them for the second chance of life and I actually pray for the person that gave me my heart every day because it means so much to me," he said.