On a cold December night in 2018, under the stadium lights of a high school football game, player Will Lambley realized something was wrong. He couldn’t read the scoreboard. He looked to the sideline, and faces he had known for years were blurry. In the following months, these symptoms worsened and doctor visits increased. Each week, his vision slipped further away until one day the doctor confirmed what Will had feared: he was losing his sight. The diagnosis—Leber’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy, a rare and irreversible disease. In an instant, the life he thought he knew was gone. Football dreams. Independence. The simple ability to recognize his teammates’ faces. Yet, for Will, this wasn’t the end of the story but the beginning of a new calling.
“The only disability in life is a bad attitude.” – Dabo Swinney
Will first heard this quote in 2019, just weeks after losing his vision, and it has framed the way he approaches each day since. His faith story began early—at just eight years old, he made a personal commitment to follow Christ. For years, though, he admits his identity was tangled in applause, approval, and performance. When blindness struck, the question came fast: Why me? Meeting daily with his football coach, he wrestled with that question until his perspective began to shift. He started to see that even in the middle of uncertainty, his life still had purpose, and that what once felt like disqualification might actually become his greatest qualification. “I realized it was okay to ask why," Will recalls, “but I also needed to ask, what was this teaching me?” Only two weeks after losing his sight, a phone call from Arkansas Razorbacks head coach Chad Morris gave him both comfort and opportunity. Coach Morris invited him to share his story with the University of Arkansas football team, marking his first official speaking engagement.
Many people think resilience is about powering through pain. For Will, resilience is simpler and harder: it’s choosing every day to put one foot in front of the other and focus on helping just one person. “I tell the Razorback players, there have been thousands who wore this jersey, but you have the chance to make it not about you. Every single day, we have the choice to be a giver or a taker.” The community around him showed him what love looks like—teammates who guided him on the field, friends who walked with him through uncertainty, and a university that welcomed him as family. It transformed his definition of strength.
Now 23, Will serves as an area representative for Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), carrying his message of faith and perseverance across Northwest Arkansas and beyond. From local locker rooms to large stages, his words are rooted in humility: “There’s nothing extraordinary about myself. You don’t have to be great to serve, but you have to serve to be great.” He encourages athletes to lead their own stories and reminds them that “life without Jesus is like a football without air.” For Will, adversity has become an avenue for ministry. “If I had to go blind but one person’s life was changed, I would do it all over again.” If he could go back to the high school version of himself—the boy who first noticed the scoreboard fading—Will would give this advice: “Take your hands off the wheel. Trust the Lord. He will show you unimaginable things.”
That trust has led him to unexpected places: speaking engagements across the region, a podcast he launched in 2023 called The Rise Above Podcast, and a platform that stretches far beyond Northwest Arkansas. You can follow his journey or even invite him to speak with your group, team, or organization at www.willlambley.com. But even with a growing reach, Will’s focus stays close to home—on one person, one day, one opportunity to serve. The theme of thankfulness takes on a deeper meaning in Will’s life. Gratitude, for him, isn’t rooted in circumstance but in perspective. He is thankful not in spite of his blindness, but through it. He is thankful for the coach who gave him his first stage, for the community that continues to rally around him, and for a God who turned heartbreak into calling. Every time Will shares his story, he reminds others that adversity doesn’t have to be a setback. It can be the very soil where resilience takes root. His journey is proof that we can rise above hardship and choose gratitude in the face of loss.
“The only disability in life is a bad attitude.” For Will Lambley, this isn’t just a quote—it’s a way of living. And for Fayetteville, his story is a reminder that even in the darkest seasons, thankfulness can light the way forward,
Pull Quote: “The only disability in life is a bad attitude.” – Dabo Swinney