Contact: Leah Barbour
Photo by: Russ Houston
STARKVILLE, Miss.--To prepare for big games with national championship implications, like this weekend's matchup with Auburn, the Mississippi State Bulldogs rely on determination, drive, focus and fight to grind through practices and win football games.
Likewise, Jose Rodriguez is relying on a similar kind of mental and physical willpower as he fights his own personal battle versus amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.
The petroleum products director at the Mississippi State Chemical Laboratory was diagnosed with the neurodegenerative disease in 2011, but he has continued his work at the lab, housed at MSU.
Rodriguez heads the lab's analysis of Mississippi petroleum products, including octane verification and ethanol percentages. Rodriguez and his team also evaluate reports of "bad gasoline."
"ALS doesn't do anything to your brain; it degenerates your neurocapacities in your legs and arms but not your brain," Rodriguez said. "I still check that everything is OK with all the analyses of petroleum. If there's any problem in the samples, I'm the face of Mississippi State Chemical Laboratory, and I notify the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce."
Most people don't know much about ALS, he said, so efforts to raise awareness like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge are especially important. Research to find a cure is critical, so the MSCL team donated to the ALS Association Louisiana-Mississippi Chapter.
Staff also agreed to take the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and Rodriguez insisted on taking it, too, said MSCL Director Ashli Brown, State Chemist.
"We were going to cut up pieces of paper for him, but he said no and he put ice water over his head as well," Brown said. "That's a big testament to his spirit, his drive, his determination. We see him every day, and we've seen how the diagnosis doesn't affect his spirit, but it can affect the day-to-day routine, and it affects every single one of us."
Brown and Rodriguez emphasized the importance of increasing awareness and researching ALS since no cure has yet been found.
"We need to continue the research into ALS; the more time, effort and money that are invested, the more likely a difference can be made," Rodriguez said. "Mississippi State is affected by it, Starkville is affected by is and the general community is affected by it. The more people who know about it, the better."
Brown said Rodriguez is the first person she met to be diagnosed with ALS, but she's impressed by his advocating the research to find a cure.
"He's an incredibly proud, strong individual, but he hasn't missed a day of work because of it," she said. "He's here every day doing his job. He has to do things a little differently, but he's still doing it."
Learn more about the ALS Association Louisiana-Mississippi Chapter at http://webla.alsa.org, or discover more about the MSCL at http://www.mscl.msstate.edu.
MSU is online at www.msstate.edu, facebook.com/msstate, Instagram.com/msstate and twitter.com/msstate.