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Kirk Herbstreit shares update on his son, timeline: ‘This came out of nowhere’

Keith Farner

By Keith Farner

Published:

Kirk Herbstreit went on with Pat McAfee to share an update about his son, who was released this week from a Columbus hospital following a visit related to a heart condition.

Zak Herbstreit, an Ohio State tight end, had an issue on Friday of last week, his father said,

“We brought him home last night, which is great, but it’s not like normally you get out of the hospital and you’re cured and everything’s good,” Kirk Herbstreit said. “He’s in good spirits, he’s home with us where his mom can take really good care of him and this is just going to be a long process to kind of see how his heart responds to some of the medications that he’s on, and this is like a 3- or 4-month kind of thing to kind of see how it recovers.”

Some keys for the family are to be patient and positive.

“This came out of nowhere, man,” Herbstreit said. “It’s another example of you guys being athletes you understand this, you do a physical, it’s one thing, but you do, it’s called an echocardiogram, it really examines the heart, it’s more of an ultrasound on the heart. It checks the pressures of the heart, checks the size of the heart.”

Herbstreit said his son had very few symptoms, and he praised the medical staff for getting an echocardiogram done, and recommended that in-depth test beyond the average sports physical.

“We’re at the beginning of this, we’re going to be positive and it’s a long haul and he’s going to get better,” Herbstreit said.

Keith Farner

Keith Farner has written about college football for newspapers and web sites since 2005.