On September 26, 2025, we should be celebrating our son Calvin “CJ” Dickey Jr.’s 20th birthday. Instead, we are marking one year and three months since his death after collapsing during his very first football workout at Bucknell University’s Pascucci Family Athletics Complex.
CJ was only 18 years old. He never had the chance to begin his freshman year, to celebrate another birthday, to see the future he worked so hard for, or to play even one snap of collegiate football. His life was cut short during a workout that, based on what has been reported, did not follow established safety protocols for athletes with sickle cell trait and the known risks of exertional sickling and rhabdomyolysis.
In CJ’s honor, we have launched a billboard campaign near Lewisburg, where Bucknell University is located. These billboards call on Bucknell to release the independent report into what happened to our son.
Just weeks after CJ’s death, Tufts University faced its own crisis when dozens of men’s lacrosse players fell ill from exertional rhabdomyolysis and nine were hospitalized. Tufts responded swiftly: the President announced an independent investigation, released an executive summary within months, and committed to policy changes to protect athletes going forward.
Bucknell has not taken similar steps. The University had eight months before we filed suit to share information, yet there has been no full account, no transparency, and no answers to our questions about what happened on day one.
CJ suffered for two days as his body shut down — kidney failure, metabolic crisis, sickling events, hypovolemia, muscle breakdown requiring surgery, and five cardiac arrests. He had to be sedated, and in his final hours he no longer recognized us as his parents. We and his sister sat by his side, praying for a miracle. This was a horrible death that no child should endure and no family should ever have to witness.
Any parent would want a full account. Any parent with a child in a sports program would want to know how this happened and what the university is doing to ensure it never happens again.
On what should have been CJ’s 20th birthday, we are standing up because he cannot. By sharing our pain publicly, we hope others will see that this is not just our family’s tragedy — it reflects a broader failure of accountability that affects every parent who entrusts their child to an institution.
Our billboards are not simply signs — they are our voices for CJ. They remind us that silence is not accountability. To our knowledge, no one has been held accountable. Last season, there were no suspensions while the school claimed to be investigating, and play continued as though CJ had never collapsed on campus and lost his life.
We call on the Bucknell community — its students, alumni, faculty, and supporters — to stand with us in demanding transparency, accountability, and change. Bucknell’s own mission speaks of a commitment to the “ethical dimensions of life.” This is one of those moments. We implore the University to live up to that mission by ensuring CJ’s story is not buried in silence but becomes a catalyst for truth and reform.
It begins with one step: release the independent report, share what happened, and commit to change. As a beloved son and brother, CJ will never be forgotten. How Bucknell responds to his death will not only define its integrity today — it will shape its legacy for generations to come.
