‘Pure sunshine’: Duke football family mourning the death of 24-year-old former player
Kade Parmelly played only one season for Duke’s football team, in a year during which the Blue Devils endured one of their most difficult seasons in recent history.
The reserve offensive lineman’s impact, though, belied the lack of familiarity caused by Parmelly playing his first four seasons at Abilene Christian before transferring to Duke in January 2021.
“Everybody needs sunshine in their lives to be happy,” former Duke football coach David Cutcliffe said Tuesday. “Kade Parmelly came to us in a pretty cloudy time, obviously. And he was pure sunshine.”
That made Parmelly’s death in Abilene on July 7 at 24 so profoundly sad for all who knew him. He was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia last February.
“His loss will be felt throughout Abilene Christian, throughout Duke,” said Jeff Faris, Duke’s offensive coordinator in 2021 who is now UCLA’s tight ends coach. “Anybody he touched was made better by Kade Parmelly.”
Parmelly played on Cutcliffe’s final team at Duke. The Blue Devils went 3-9 that season, going winless in the ACC. That led to the end of Cutcliffe’s 14-season tenure as Duke’s head coach.
Parmelly played in all 12 games that season, starting the regular-season finale against Miami. But long before that, his infectious personality struck everyone who was just getting to know the new kid who arrived from west-central Texas.
“You’ve always wanted to build a great culture, but now it’s more challenging because you’re bringing in kids that aren’t there for four years,” Faris said. “Sometimes when you bring in a transfer, you worry about what they are going to do to the culture. He was a home-run addition from a cultural standpoint. Obviously, he was a very good player, but I don’t now if they’ll ever be a better addition to a roster from a cultural standpoint.”
Riley Leonard, entering his second season as Duke’s starting quarterback and his junior season with the Blue Devils, was a freshman when he and Parmelly arrived on campus the same year.
“He is the most caring person I’ve ever met,” Leonard wrote in March while making a donation on the GoFundMe page started to raise money to help offset Parmelly’s cancer treatment costs.
That fundraiser earned $60,450.
“We love you Kade. Watch over us,” Duke’s current starting left tackle Graham Barton, Parmelly’s teammate in 2021, wrote on Twitter following Parmelly’s death.
‘He already understands’
Born in Abilene on Sept. 22, 1998, Parmelly played four seasons at Abilene Christian, taking mission trips to Ghana in Africa and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, along the way. He was a team captain in 2019 and 2020.
Cutcliffe remembers calling the players together in a circle following a 2021 workout and telling them to put a hand in the middle. Parmelly spoke up with an adjustment.
“He said, ‘Put your left hand in, not your right,’” Cutcliffe said Parmelly told his teammates before continuing, ‘Your left hand is closer to your heart.’ How awesome is that? Here’s a new guy. That’s when it hit me that he already understands.”
Parmelly received his Master’s in Management Studies degree from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business in 2022 before returning to Texas where he worked at PakEnergy, a computer software company serving the oil and gas industry. He is survived by his parents, Bryan and Shawna Parmelly, sisters Andrea and Abby Parmelly and a brother, Kess Parmelly.
A memorial service is scheduled for Wednesday morning at Beltway Park Church in Abilene.
The family requests that memorials be given to: Fellowship of Christian Athletes, P.O. Box 6605, Abilene, Texas, 79608; Make-A-Wish America, 1702 E. Highland Ave. Ste. 400, Phoenix, Ariz., 85016 and Redeemer Church, P.O Box 7328, Abilene, Texas, 79608.
