GREEVER | Happy and healthy, former UVA running back Perris Jones is grateful for life and Louisville

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WDRB) - Football is not a sport where quiet and stillness come to mind.

The game normally doesn't freeze. The crowd doesn't typically look on with nothing to say. The players don't usually have to be so harshly and immediately reminded of the inherent nature of the sport they love, one where violence is constant, yet the next play is always expected. 

Former Virginia running back Perris Jones did not get another play. The last one of his six-year collegiate career ended in a touchdown, but it belonged to a teammate after Jones took a hit and fumbled. But no one remembers who scored on that play.

We remember who was motionless on the field.

"It's like my body was almost like a light switch, if you will," Jones said. "And everything turned off. I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't move anything. I didn't even feel myself hit the ground.

"And just laying there, I remember thinking to myself, 'What am I going to do now?'"

The stretcher came out. The medical staff and trainers secured him to it. Everyone else in Louisville and watching elsewhere suddenly knew the real win to be determined in those frightening 10 minutes on November 9, 2023 was going to be if this young man could just move again.

Jones initially did not doubt that.

"'Okay, give it a couple seconds and I'll be able to feel something somewhere,'" Jones recalled thinking. "Then, once I didn't, after that short time had elapsed, I kind of realized, 'Okay, this might be something more serious.'

And then when the trainer came over, I asked, 'Am I paralyzed?' And she was like, 'No, you're not.'

And I was like, 'Okay, all right. Well, I'll be all right.'"

The factor in this equation we in Louisville did not know at the time was how special this young man's belief was, how immediately positive he somehow was. We would come to learn exactly how well his parents in Joanna and Stevie raised him.

"My dad and my mom have always instilled in me that if you can open your eyes and you can put your two feet on the ground, you can make it through whatever you're dealing with," Jones said. "And God's going to give you the strength for it. So, I've always carried that mindset.

"Because I've always kind of been a kid that's thinking about, 'Okay, what's the next move?' Don't stay in the moment. And I was able to rely on my faith. That gave me a sense of comfort in that moment as well, to know that everything was going to be okay after the immediate pain and sadness of realizing the magnitude of what was going on.

"It was a freaky moment, for sure. But it was a monumental one."

Standing on his two feet at the corner of two streets across from Scott Stadium on the University of Virginia's campus on Saturday, Jones knows the work that followed in the crucial seconds, minutes and hours at the University of Louisville's downtown medical center would help the 5-foot-7 Cavalier stand again.

"I asked if there was any other way I could do it besides doing surgery," Jones said. "I was like, 'Man, do I have to? I have to because I hate hospitals. I hate admitting that I'm hurt. My trainers here will tell you that.

"But when they told me that was the best option to give me the best results, I was all set for it and I was ready to go."

Louisville was not ready for him to leave. Jones rehabbed at Frazier Rehab Institute for weeks after having successful surgery. He bonded with staffers who became family, whether that was from U of L or Frazier, and connected two proud Commonwealths.

"They were always checking on me, making sure that I had everything that I needed, and I was in the best position to be as well as I could be," Jones said. "And I can firmly say that they're a part of the fam.

"I told them that when we were there, whether they like it or not, they were. They were aunts and uncles. So, I'm grateful for those people. They truly did wonders for me that I can't even put words on."

The celebration was one of the most memorable of 2023. Jones walked out of Frazier with his loved ones, whether they be new and lining the exit path or old and grateful a new community could wrap its arms around him.

He just hoped he looked okay.

"I was a little embarrassed because I don't think I had a haircut or anything like that," Jones said with a laugh. "So, I was looking wild. And they told me when I was walking out, 'Man, there's going to be a lot of people that are going to be greeting you and want to shake your hand, give you a hug and talk to you.

"I was like sheesh because I was going through the process of learning how to take a shower and everything again. I was like, 'Do I smell all right? All these people are going to be giving me a hug. What if they think I smell bad?

"So, it was a moment. But it was amazing. To see how Louisville put their arms around my family and I, it truly was a blessing. And it wasn't one that I expected, honestly. But it was, man.

"I can't thank you guys enough, the entire Louisville community, because the love that you guys have shown, you didn't have to. But you did, and you did it in bucket loads. So, it was definitely one of the best days of my life."

Now living his happily in the Charlottesville area, Jones uses his story of recovery to inspire his path to motivational speaking. If he is not doing a speaking engagement, the Florida native who went to high school in Northern Virginia is helping the youth around the college town he grew up in.

"I haven't felt pain since I got out of surgery, which is remarkable now that I think about it and say it out loud," Jones said. "But recovery has been smooth. It's just more so transitioned into working out and and making sure that I'm living a healthy lifestyle, eating right and things like that.

"So I can't complain, truly. And I'm blessed compared to wherever the people in my position are at."

He wants to spread that message more. Jones has a website where his goals are clearly stated: write an autobiography, start a non-profit organization and earn a PhD. But his purpose is much deeper.

"I want people to hear my story and my speaking," Jones said. "I want them to be motivated and inspired to change their own lives. Because everybody has a story.

"And that's another thing I wanted to highlight. You know, people look at mine just because there's a lot of eyes that witnessed it. But people go through battles every day that they overcome and that they persevere through, and they use the same tools that I've used.

"So, if I can speak my story and show that you know what you are doing, what you need to be doing, you are strong, you are intelligent, you are enough, essentially, to get through whatever life throws at you, and you take that and use it in your own right and make it what you need to make it, and it transforms the lives of others around you, then we create a culture of people that are driven, persevering and resilient and caring for one another. And when an environment like that exists, it's hard for thriving not to be a possibility and not to be everything that everybody's invested in.

"So, that's the point of doing it. That's the purpose. I hope that people hear my story and realize that they can do the same thing in terms of inspiring other people as well."

It already inspired the city of Louisville. And it connected a special Cavalier to a community he is grateful for every single day. 

"The city of Louisville was so amazing, so much so that I want to get back there as much as I can. Whether I live there or not, I don't know if I could deal with the hot browns and stuff like that," Jones said with a laugh. "But it's definitely a place that I could see myself becoming more integrated with just because of the community that's there."

Copyright 2024 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.