This story originally appeared in the Fall 2025 edition of Hurricanes Magazine.

CORAL GABLES, Fla. – For months, every day started the same way.

Mark Fletcher Jr. would wake up, brush his teeth, pray, then text his parents and girlfriend to say good morning.

It didn’t matter if he’d spoken to them all the night before.

Before he went to campus and joined his teammates in meetings or on the practice field, Fletcher wanted to make sure his family – his people – knew he was thinking of them.

Most mornings, Fletcher would get responses to those messages before he even made it to Miami’s facility, particularly from his father, Mark Sr., who was an early riser.

On October 24, 2024, though, there was silence.

Still, Fletcher didn’t think anything was wrong as he settled in with his fellow backs for their pre-practice meeting with running backs coach Matt Merritt.

Miami was undefeated and rolling. A matchup against Florida State loomed. There was work to be done and Fletcher figured he’d just catch up with his family after practice.

Then Merritt was called out of the meeting. Not long after, so was Fletcher.

As the running back made his way to head coach Mario Cristobal’s office, he couldn’t help but wonder if he was in some kind of trouble. He didn’t think he’d done anything wrong, but clearly, something was amiss.

When he walked into Cristobal’s office, saw his aunt waiting for him with a phone in her hand and heard his mother’s shaking voice coming through the speaker, Fletcher realized why his earlier texts has gone unanswered.

And something inside him broke.

“I just asked, ‘My dad’s dead?’ and my auntie nodded her head yes,” he recalled. “She didn’t have any words. She just nodded and I lost it. I just lost it”

In that earth-shattering moment, the running back did the only think he could think of.

He ran.

He ran past his aunt, past the coaches and staffers who tried to stop him.

He ran through the side door in Cristobal’s office, and he ran all the way out of the Carol Soffer Indoor Practice Facility until he collapsed, in tears, onto the track at Cobb Stadium.

There, just steps from Greentree – where his father had so often watched him and his Hurricanes teammates practice – Fletcher realized he wasn’t alone.

Cristobal had followed him. So had Merritt. And Stephen Field, Miami’s Executive Director of Football Recruiting. And Benedick Hyppolite, then an offensive analyst for the Hurricanes.

All of them had been there when he’d learned the devastating news that he’d lost his best friend, his role model, and his biggest fan. And all of them wanted Fletcher to know that whatever grief he was feeling, he wouldn’t have to feel it alone.

“If they wouldn’t have chased after me, I don’t know what I would have done in that moment, honestly,” Fletcher said. “So, thank God for them. I didn’t know where I was going or what I was going to do. They just had to really hold me and thank God for them.”

After his coaches picked him up and he’d calmed down, Cristobal asked Fletcher what he wanted to do next. Did he want to want to sit with his aunt? Go home and see his family?

For Fletcher, there was only one option.

“I said, ‘I’m going to practice. We’ve got practice today and we’ve got FSU this week,’” Fletcher told his coach. “And the only reason I went to practice is because, real talk, what would my dad want me to do? It wasn’t about what I wanted to do. What would my dad want me to do right now?”

Fletcher didn’t just practice on the day of his father’s passing.

Two days later, he took the field for Miami’s game against rival Florida State and scored the Hurricanes’ first touchdown in what was eventually a resounding Miami win.

And when he reached the end zone, Fletcher fell to one knee, extended his arm and pointed up at the sky.

That simple gesture has now become a regular part of Fletcher’s game and Mark Sr. remains Fletcher’s biggest motivation.

“That’s my why,” Fletcher said earlier this year, gesturing to a shirt that bore his father’s photo.  “I don’t know [if] I can tell you what my why was before. I guess I just loved playing football. But this is definitely my why now and it’s going to forever be that.”

A year after his father’s death, Fletcher is still grieving; still thinking of Mark Sr. every time he takes the field. After all, it was his father who helped him fall in love with not only football, but the Miami Hurricanes.

But there is light again, too.

It’s not uncommon to see Fletcher smiling or laughing with his teammates as he comes off the practice field. Or to watch him pose for pictures and sign autographs for the Miami fans who wait to see him outside Hard Rock Stadium after games.

He is a junior now, a veteran in the Miami locker room and he considers it part of his job to be as positive and encouraging as possible for his teammates in their toughest moments.

Joy, his mother says, has always been part of her youngest son’s personality.

“From the moment he was born, he was full of life, joyful, smiling,” Linda Fletcher said. “He was always an independent, happy kid. … And even as a little thing, he was always a leader. He would have all his little cousins around him, and he was only 3-years old, but he was telling them what to do and they would listen. … He was the leader from the get-go.”

Thanks to his father and his older brother, he was a football player from the get-go, too.

Fletcher, who heads into Miami’s regular-season finale at Pittsburgh on Saturday as the Hurricanes’ leading rusher with 655 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns, began playing organized football with the Lauderhill Lions when he was just seven years old and because he was one of the biggest players on the field, coaches put him on the offensive line.

It was an experiment that didn’t last very long.

His coaches quickly noticed that despite his size, Fletcher was plenty quick.

He consistently outran his teammates during sprints and eventually, was given the opportunity to run the ball in a game.

His first carry, Fletcher notes with a smile, was a touchdown.

“Then they just said, ‘All right. We’re going to put him at running back,” he laughed.

Fletcher worked his way up through the youth football ranks in Broward County and eventually landed at American Heritage in Plantation. There, he developed into a four-star prospect who helped the Patriots win a state title during his sophomore year.

That season, he topped the 100-yard mark in nine of American Heritage’s 13 games.

More success followed his junior year and as a senior, Fletcher totaled 1,934 rushing yards and 23 touchdowns. Florida, Ohio State, Alabama, Auburn, Florida State, Georgia, Michigan, Penn State and others all wanted him on their rosters.

And for a brief time, it seemed that Fletcher – the South Florida kid who’d grown up watching videos of Miami legends Ray Lewis and Sean Taylor – would head north.

Fletcher committed to Ohio State before eventually changing his mind and signing with the program he – and his father – had always cheered.

“I think I was caught in this period of super excitement that this other big college I’d never really looked into wanted me and I was just so excited when I went up there to visit,” Fletcher said. “But in my heart, before signing day, I just didn’t feel the way I was supposed to feel. And God put me in the right position. I was so thankful I chose Miami.

“I didn’t have to think twice about Miami. I knew I was going to be okay at Miami, no matter how things went because I was close to home. I was close to my people, and this was the place where I always wanted to be when I was younger. … I just really asked God. I prayed so hard. And I didn’t even have to think twice about Miami. I knew I would be perfectly fine, and I would excel.”

Fletcher was more than fine during his freshman season at Miami.

He appeared in 10 games in 2023 and made four starts. He led the Hurricanes with 105 carries and was second on the team with 514 rushing yards.

Fletcher posted 100-yard performances against both NC State and Louisville and looked poised to put himself in position for an even bigger role as a sophomore when he was called on to start in Miami’s season finale, the Pinstripe Bowl.

But he left the game with a foot injury after just two carries and didn’t think much of it, figuring he’d just tweaked his ankle, and he’d be back in action soon enough.

“It was after my freshman year, so I didn’t really know the benefits of an offseason, honestly. I didn’t think anything of it at first when they told me I’d be sitting out,” Fletcher said. “But I will say, the first two, three months in trying to recover and do my rehab, it definitely hit me like, ‘Dang, this is something serious. I won’t be walking any time soon.’”

It turns out Fletcher had a Lisfranc injury on his left foot – something far more serious than an ankle sprain.

He needed surgery to correct the issue, then had to undergo months of recovery and rehabilitation work.

And while he, obviously, kept in touch with his teammates and had his eye on what the Hurricanes were doing ahead of the 2024 season, darkness crept in, and Fletcher worried.

He wanted to play. He wanted to develop his skill set. He wanted to know he’d be able to make a difference for the Hurricanes when the new season began.

Staying positive among so much uncertainty became difficult and Fletcher – who’d never had a serious injury to that point – found himself struggling in a way he’d never really struggled before.

“I’ve never been a negative person. I’m always the guy who can make a person’s day better. I just try to always stay positive,” Fletcher said. “But I realized my mind was turning me into something else. I wasn’t smiling as much, and I realized I really had to bring it all up out of myself. I had to really have a wake-up call.”

Fletcher turned to his family and his faith to help him navigate the uncertainty of his injury.

He dove into Scripture and spent time sharing his fears and worries with former Miami chaplain Mike Blanc. Little by little, his mindset shifted, and he focused not on what he couldn’t do, but on what he could.

Fletcher couldn’t participate in spring drills, but he could study film, talk to his coaches and learn as much about the college game as possible.

If he couldn’t get his body ready for his sophomore season, he could get his mind ready for what awaited once he got back on the field.

That return eventually came on a steamy, August afternoon in Gainesville when the Hurricanes opened the season against rival Florida.

Fletcher had seven carries for 23 yards in Miami’s win that day, but most importantly, he scored – twice, even though he still didn’t feel like himself.

“It was definitely emotional. I know my parents were probably crying. But for me, it was just so much joy. I felt so much joy in my heart. I put in so much work in the rehab process to play again,” Fletcher said. “No, I couldn’t get better at football or work on my cuts. I was focused on getting better and being able to walk and run again. And even in that game against Florida, if you really go back and look, I tripped over myself so many times. I had such a weak foot. I was healthy enough to go out there and play and give my effort, but I still wasn’t myself. I was just happy that I could contribute and help my team.”

Fletcher returned to Miami’s rotation and even if he didn’t feel his best, he helped Miami win games and that was enough.

Then came that horrible October morning and a pain unlike any other.

The same teammates who’d rallied around him when he got hurt surrounded Fletcher in his grief. Miami’s entire team attended Mark Sr.’s funeral and did their best in the weeks and months that followed to remind Fletcher he wasn’t alone.

“A lot of us knew Mark since he was younger and we all knew his dad,” said running back Jordan Lyle. “For something that tragic to happen to him, we just felt like we needed to be there for him. He’s always there for us, good and bad. So, we had to be there for him during his tough time. We were all praying for Mark: my family, everybody else in the room, their families. Mark is just a big part of everybody’s lives. He’s basically that jelling glue that keeps everybody together.”

Added defensive lineman Rueben Bain Jr., “Big Mark, he was like a father to all of us. He’d come to practice, and he was always chilling and laughing with us. To walk into practice and find out he was gone, it drew tears out of our eyes. We all shared that moment with Mark and comforted him. It stuck out to all of us that he stayed at practice. … It was just super important for us to be there for him. We knew we had to be there with him every step of the season.”

That support proved crucial.

In the immediate aftermath of his father’s death, Fletcher concedes he thought about giving up the game he’d loved all his life.

The idea of playing without his father cheering him on proved too much to bear.

But he knew in his heart of hearts he couldn’t walk away from football.

He couldn’t walk away from the Hurricanes.

He knew his father wouldn’t have wanted that and so, Fletcher powered on.

“The reason I didn’t quit was really because I didn’t want to quit on these people who I built these great connections with,” Fletcher said. “If I didn’t build such deep connections with every single player on this team, it would have been so much easier to quit. And it was definitely the knowledge of knowing my dad would not want me to quit.”

The Hurricanes, for their part, are grateful Fletcher is still a part of the team, still a part of their family.

And they’ve vowed to continue to be there for him, through all he may be feeling.

“His energy, his spirit, his heart, his leadership, his care factor is awesome. Mark Fletcher is a special, special young man,” Cristobal said. “Big Mark is watching him from above and I know he’s extremely proud of his son. He’s a guy that you can’t wait to go watch practice because you know he’s going to bring it. He’s going to change the energy of the entire team. Mark’s come a long way.”