BLOOMINGTON – The tattoo starts at Harry Crider’s left shoulder, running about a third of the length of his sizable upper arm.

It’s a caduceus — a long staff, wrapped by intertwining snakes and topped with a pair of wings. In Greek mythology, it was carried by Hermes, a son of Zeus. Today, it’s a commonly used symbol in medicine.

Layered over the caduceus are the words “Type One Diabetic,” and then two lines of text beneath that. The first says, “DOD 2009,” the second, “DOC,” no number attached.

“Date of diagnosis was in 2009,” Crider says, explaining the ink. “This is date of cure. It’s left blank.”

IU’s starting left guard, Crider is quiet by nature, one of the quietest players on his team in Tom Allen’s estimation. Crider’s dream school growing up was Indiana, but even his parents weren’t sure of that until he got his IU offer and told them he wanted to decommit from Virginia and stay home for college.

But, ask Crider about managing his diabetes, a condition he has lived almost as much of his life with as without, and he’ll answer all your questions. Explain the challenges of his childhood after the diagnosis. The support he got from his parents. The advocacy he did for the Riley Children’s Hospital staff he considered family.

And the ways he’s learned to manage his diabetes playing Big Ten football, so well that his coaches, teammates and trainers barely ever need to help — so well that sometimes, they forget it’s even an issue.

"He's not going to need much"

When Crider arrived in Bloomington in 2017, one of his earliest priorities was a sit-down with Kyle Blackman, the Hoosiers’ head athletic trainer for football.

Blackman knew about Crider’s diabetes, and he was nervous. Was he prepared for what Crider would need, in the punishing day-to-day life of an offensive lineman? Was Crider?

“He just kind of needs your support,” Harry’s father, Bob, told Blackman and team doctor Andy Hipskind. “He’s not going to need much. He handles it really well.”

So Blackman made sure he was always available for Harry, and ready for what he’d need. He learned quickly that it wouldn’t be much.

“Harry grabbed me about a week into it,” Blackman said. “I was following him around with a Gatorade. He said, ‘I’ve got this.’”

Harry Crider was 10 years old in December 2009 when he experienced flu-like symptoms and his parents took him to the doctor. The visit changed his life forever.

“They did a blood sugar check there and it was in the 300s,” Harry said. “It was an easy test. That’s all it takes to know you’re diabetic.”

The Criders immediately drove to Indianapolis, where Harry was admitted to Riley Children’s Hospital.

Over the course of a three-night stay, the staff at Riley began treating his condition, and educating Harry and his family about how to move forward.

They helped the Criders understand how to manage Harry’s diabetes. They armed the family with information on proper eating habits, and books counting the carbohydrates and sugars in every food imaginable.

In short, they prepared the Criders to help Harry live as normal of a life as possible.

“It was definitely scary at first,” Harry said. “For me, I had no idea what was next. I thought I wouldn’t be able to play sports anymore, thought I wouldn’t be able to run around with other kids anymore, because I would be dealing with this all the time.

“Riley Hospital’s great with all their doctors, they were so great. And then my parents led me every step of the way. I’m really thankful for them.”

A new way of life

Managing his condition, Harry’s mother, Elizabeth, said, “became his way of life.”

Whenever the family would go out to eat, the book of nutritional information came with them. There was a lot of trial and error at first, figuring out what worked and what didn’t. His parents took charge, but Harry learned quickly as well.

His attention to detail helped him stay active. Growing up, Harry had always played sports — basketball, baseball and, in particular, football.

“It turned out that once he got into the gym, he got awfully big and that directed him toward football,” Bob Crider said. “But he really loved everything.”

His size proved a blessing.

Harry won championships at the middle school level before moving to Columbus East, one of southern Indiana’s most-storied high school football programs. He was one of just a few freshmen to dress for the 2013 state title game, which the Olympians won to finish off a 15-0 season.

To that point, Harry had spent at least some of his time at positions such as wide receiver and tight end. He was tall (he’s listed at 6-4) but still fairly lean and athletic. It wouldn’t be until summer camp the following year that Columbus East coach Bob Gaddis made the decision that would set Harry on a course for the Big Ten.

“It seemed like every team he was on really needed linemen. Even though he wasn’t that big at the time, he was good at it, so he permanently became a lineman,” Gaddis said. “When he was a sophomore, East needed a center and that’s where they fit him in.”

By this point, Harry was a regular at Riley, making periodic trips to Indianapolis for check-ups and check-ins.

He became a Riley Champion, an honor bestowed upon “special children who show courage and commitment to help others while navigating medical obstacles,” according to Riley’s website. Harry spoke to committees and gatherings. He once delivered a speech to an Eli Lilly Foundation executive.

For his senior project at East, Harry spent an entire summer planning a diabetes awareness/fundraising event with Riley, which sent nurses down to a home game during the 2016 season to talk about diabetes awareness and conduct blood-pressure screenings. Cheerleaders took donations for Riley. All of it executed by Harry Crider.

“Riley’s very, very important to us,” Bob Crider said. “He was treated there, did clinical trials there. He and his parents as well have spent a lot of time at Riley. It’s very close to all of our hearts.”

"A pretty exciting time"

The only trouble with Riley, as Bob Crider put it, is that eventually, you graduate. There would always have to be life after Riley, and the Criders always figured it would still include football. Butler, maybe, or Franklin. Nobody imagined the Big Ten.

“We had visions of everybody weighing 350 pounds and being 6-6,” Bob Crider said, laughing. “It turned out, yeah, he was ready to do that.”

Things changed late in Harry’s junior season at East, when Power Five schools started calling. It intensified that winter with junior day invites and scholarship offers.

“Whenever he started getting items in the mail and whenever he would get phone calls, I had to start writing them all down,” Elizabeth Crider said. “I couldn’t keep track of who he had talked to and who he hadn’t and so forth, who had made an offer and who just wanted him to come to their campus, to see him in person. That was a pretty exciting time.”

Harry actually committed to Virginia first, in June 2016.

But Harry had grown up an hour from IU. He’d seen siblings go off to Indiana. He didn’t necessarily say it out loud, but that was always where he wanted to wind up. When then-coach Kevin Wilson officially extended a scholarship a few weeks later, Crider flipped for good.

“He was thrilled, and obviously, we were thrilled too,” Elizabeth Crider said. “He told us IU was his dream school.”

"He does it all himself"

As college approached, Harry began an important transition. He’d grown up with Type 1 diabetes, stuck to good habits, kept his grades up, played basketball, football and baseball, and wrestled. But for all childhood diabetics, childhood ends, and they must learn to take care of themselves without their parents’ guidance.

Fast forward to that meeting with Blackman, and Bob Crider’s promise: Harry is on top of this. He only needs your support.

“He does it all himself,” Blackman says now. “For as big of a deal as this disease is, for him to handle it so well, that’s what kind of kid he is.

“He’s never once said, ‘Hey Kyle, you need to pull me from this (drill),’ or looked like he was struggling or anything like that.”

Harry explains it as always thinking about “an extra step.” As a 311-pound offensive lineman, Crider needs to eat a lot to keep weight on, so he makes sure to have extra insulin when his body needs it. He wears a pump.

During practices and games, he likes to keep his blood sugar on the high side, so a trainer will have a Gatorade handy when he needs it.

“Longer game days, I’ll check my blood sugar during halftime to make sure I’m doing all right,” he said. “That’s really about it. Not a whole bunch goes into it.”

Harry explains his approach matter-of-factly. He says it’s become so routine he thinks his teammates and coaches mostly just forget it’s even an issue.

He took over for Wes Martin as IU’s starting left guard this season. His grades stayed high enough to earn him an academic All-Big Ten selection last season. If the NFL isn’t realistic after college, his father said Harry, a criminal justice major, wants to be a police detective.

Type 1 diabetes will be with him forever, but it hasn’t defined him or controlled his life, and it probably never will.

“He’s the most well-maintained diabetic I’ve ever met in my life,” Blackman says. “It’s truly remarkable.”

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.

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