For grieving father, Carolina Panthers, special memory of Julius Peppers serve as a lifeline

On a bright November afternoon, Rick Weaver sits at a high-top table at Hickory Tavern in Gastonia, with a scrapbook.

It’s full of photos of his son, Fredrick. Around Weaver and the leather-bound scrapbook is a pile Carolina Panthers jerseys, hats and various memorabilia once belonging to Fredrick, a huge fan of the team. Many items are autographed.

The scrapbook, created by Weaver and his wife, Ruth, documents every step of Fredrick’s life – from throwing baseballs and footballs to playing on the beach to bending over his schoolwork in his room, on top of his black-and-blue Carolina Panthers bedspread.

It was through the Panthers that Weaver’s bond with his son grew. Because Fredrick suffered from such bad asthma, he couldn’t play football. He tried for a short time to be a kicker, but accidentally broke his father’s finger while they practiced.

But when they channeled their passion for the sport into the Panthers, they went all in.

Fredrick proved an attentive, inquisitive student of the game. The two would often call in to local radio stations with questions – and Fredrick’s were so good, at age 10, that he’d often win contests for home-game tickets.

They attended every game they could, and Weaver’s favorite memory is when he and Fredrick watched the Panthers beat Dallas in a playoff game on the way to a Super Bowl berth in 2004.

Those times together, father and child, are irreplaceable. The bonds, the memories, built around a favorite sports team and favorite players and mementos, can be the foundation for a lifetime of memories.

Sometimes, life is too short.

That phone call

Rick Weaver’s stomach turned over as he held the phone to his ear. Fredrick, his 22-year-old son, was having an asthma attack, and his inhaler was not working.

“Dad, I can’t breathe,” Fredrick said.

Weaver urged Fredrick’s fiancee to call 911, but his son thought she could drive him to the hospital from their apartment near UNC Charlotte, where Fredrick was a student and teacher’s assistant in the biology department.

“Take an ambulance, call 911 right now,” Weaver told her.

The line went dead.

Weaver and his younger son, David, sprinted to the car. David drove toward Fredrick’s apartment as Weaver, shaking, tried to reach Fredrick. No answer.

At Fredrick’s apartment, they found a barrier around the perimeter because of construction. Weaver began to scream his son’s name.

He frantically clawed his way over the barrier and got to the door.

Weaver thought if he could just get to his son, he could save him. He had resuscitated Fredrick before, after an asthma attack rendered his son breathless and unconscious on Weaver’s driveway. He had performed CPR on Fredrick as the family rushed to the hospital, and his son reawakened in the car, with a fluttering of his eyelids and a gasp.

“Just let me get in there, and I’ll fix him,” Weaver said he thought.

The apartment was empty, so they headed for the hospital.

“We sat in the waiting room and he wasn’t there,” said Weaver, his voice cracking. “And nobody would call me back. ... I couldn’t make sense of it.

“And then, I got that phone call. A man told me he needed to speak with me, and I asked to talk to Fredrick. And he said, ‘Sir, unfortunately, he’s no longer with us.’”

Fredrick had stopped breathing in the passenger’s seat of his fiancee’s car while she sped to the hospital.

It was July 22, 2016.

A special moment

As huge Panthers fans, Weaver and Fredrick sometimes waited for autographs after practices and games, and they met dozens of players that way.

Fredrick stacked up trading card after trading card with signature after signature, but there was one Panthers player who always eluded them: Introverted defensive end Julius Peppers.

One morning, at the stadium before a game and peering through sheets of rain, Fredrick, then about 8 or 9, caught sight of Peppers’ Bentley.

Before Weaver could stop Fredrick, his young son scampered down the hill on which they stood and right up to Peppers, who turned in surprise as he got out of his car to see the boy. Weaver said he flashed Peppers a nervous thumbs-up from a distance, and almost fell over when Peppers scooped the boy up and sat him in his Bentley to get him out of the rain.

As Weaver watched, the two chattered away. Peppers began taking items out of his trunk to sign for Fredrick. Weaver knew his son also had an unsigned Peppers rookie card in his pocket, but later, he found that Fredrick had been so excited to meet his hero that he had completely forgotten about it.

Fredrick excitedly told his dad that the two had talked “about everything.” He then informed Weaver that because Peppers said he went to North Carolina for college, that was where he wanted to go, too. Fredrick talked about the encounter for weeks, delightedly showing everyone the items and autographs Peppers had given him.

But he never got to see his hero return to Charlotte.

‘It’s just like he’s there’

Crinkles blossom across Weaver’s face as he remembers his son, threading and crossing to meet the dark, bruised-looking pools under his eyes. They show what his life is like now – waves of happy memories and fresh sadness.

The laugh lines are from his years with Fredrick. The dark circles are from losing him.

A friend recently took Weaver, 51, to his first Panthers game since Fredrick’s death, so he could feel the camaraderie at their longtime tailgate. Weaver said the group of friends cried together and honored Fredrick’s memory – but that being in the stands just isn’t the same without his son.

Instead, Weaver prefers to sit in his living room on Sundays as the rest of his family quietly leaves him to his thoughts and the televised game.

On the mantle above the television sits a framed photo of Fredrick, and Weaver keeps his son’s old spot on the couch vacant as he talks to the photograph throughout the game. Sometimes Sundays, he doesn’t feel so alone.

“It’s just like he’s there,” he said quietly.

Weaver’s light blue eyes fill with tears as he laughs and aches about the love of the Panthers he shared with Fredrick.

The trading card is still unsigned. Weaver imagines what his son might have said on the day Peppers re-signed with the Panthers last spring.

“To see Pep back in No. 90,” Weaver said, “he’d be right there, front row to see that.”

This story was originally published November 22, 2017 at 3:47 PM with the headline "For grieving father, Carolina Panthers, special memory of Julius Peppers serve as a lifeline."