Mr. Buddy Garrity
08-09-2005, 08:55 AM
McZeal fights for life, gridiron return
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By Dave Rogers - The News staff writer Posted: 08/08/05 - 10:35:25 pm CDT
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A blood clot in his lung killed Jeremy McZeal late last October.
Twice.
But the Memorial High School student came back from the dead.
"I kept praying," his mother, Stacey Watson, recalled recently. "The Lord gave him back to me."
Now McZeal is looking to rejoin the Titans' football team.
A little more than seven months after being released from Houston hospitals where he spent nearly 60 days -- some of it on a ventilator, much of it in intensive care -- and wasted away to as few as 114 pounds, the 6-foot-2, 183-pound wide receiver wants to reclaim his spot as a starter for Memorial's football team.
Preseason drills begin this afternoon. How soon McZeal is cleared to take part depends on a mound of paperwork.
His mother has given her OK.
"He can go back and play," she says. "He sweated me, because I wasn't going to let him play. But you know you can't stop him. The doctor said he was healthy enough."
McZeal, who has been working out on his own since March rebuilding his body, says he has already delivered some recent medical test results to school officials.
"I've got to go up there Monday and see what they're going to say about that," he said.
Dean Colbert, Memorial's fourth-year head coach, is excited about McZeal's progress.
"He doesn't have all his clearances," to return, "but he does have partial clearance," the coach says. "We're working on full clearance. It looks like we should be able to get that.
"But even if he doesn't come back, it's apparent he's come such a long way. If he doesn't play a down, he's still a major part of our team. He'll definitely give everyone an inspirational boost.
"But in a best-case scenario, he can definitely contribute. He was out there this summer working out and running routes. He looked good.
"But we have to make absolutely certain that the doctors clear him in terms of health."
A distant cousin of Brian McZeal, a star running back for Stephen F. Austin High School in Port Arthur and McNeese State in the 1980s, Jeremy McZeal was leading Memorial High in pass receptions when he says he was injured, in the Titans' seventh game of last year's 6-5 season, against Kingwood.
He was the only player on the team with a catch in each of the three non-district and four district games Memorial played up to that point. He had 20 catches in all for 304 yards and three touchdowns, one each in the last three games he played.
McZeal's knee injury didn't appear serious and his coaches and teammates were surprised when he didn't make it to school the next Friday for the Oct. 22 game at Spring High.
But what nobody knew then was that McZeal has a disorder that causes his blood to clot easily or excessively. It is believed that one or more blood clots that developed as a result of the knee injury eventually traveled through his bloodstream to his lungs and choked off his air supply.
"I don't know where the blood clots occurred from," McZeal says. "My knee really started messing with me. I was limping bad. I could barely walk.
"Every time I tried to run on it or walk, it got worser and worser. I came home and laid down in bed. I got sicker and sicker. My leg got bigger and bigger."
In the second week after hurting his knee, McZeal noticed he was having trouble breathing.
"It kept getting worse," he said.
Finally, on Saturday, Oct. 30, he recalls, "I was laying in the bed and I was trying to call my momma's name, but I couldn't, because I was losing air every time I talked.
"I tried to get up out of the bed and I rolled onto the floor. I told my niece to get Momma. That's all I remember. I blacked out after that."
McZeal was transported to Park Place Hospital in Port Arthur. Then on to Houston's Memorial Hermann Hospital. He was hooked up to a machine to do his breathing for him.
Most of what he knows of those frantic first 100 hours or so is what he was later told.
"They said I passed away," McZeal recalls. "Then I woke up and I was at Park Place. Everybody told me 'You left us for a little while, but they brought you back.'
"Then I left for Houston and they said I left again, but they brought me back again."
"That was just nerve-wracking," Watson, McZeal's mother, recalls. "They tell you he's dead, then he's not dead. I just kept it in my mind, he's talking to his Lord right now, and I kept praying. The Lord gave him back to me."
McZeal says doctors told him both his lungs collapsed, that he suffered heart failure and damage to his kidneys and liver. After he spent nearly a month at Memorial Hermann, doctors transferred him to a Houston rehabilitation hospital.
On Dec. 23, McZeal was released to complete his comeback at home.
"It was the biggest Christmas present I've ever had," says Watson, a mother of nine adopted and biological children who had been making daily trips to Houston to be with Jeremy, her youngest son.
Colbert and his wife Cynthia had also made frequent trips to McZeal's bedside in Houston. They were often accompanied by members of Memorial's coaching staff. Some of the player's Titan teammates made the drive as well.
Even without suiting up for his team's final four games last season, Jeremy McZeal finished 2004 as Memorial High's leading pass-catcher. His 20 grabs were three more than teammate Eric Reynolds, who took over as the Titans' go-to receiver in McZeal's absence.
Another wide receiver, Dustyn Thomas, saw his playing time increase with McZeal being out of the lineup. Reynolds, Thomas and varsity newcomer Brian Melonson were the top wideouts on Memorial's successful 7-on-7 team this summer.
McZeal practiced some in June and July with the Titans' 7-on-7 squad and there was some hope he might gain all the needed medical and school clearances to join Memorial's team for last month's state 7-on-7 tournament.
The paperwork tripped him up.
But McZeal has a history of working his way through paperwork as well as the odds. Because of his two months in the hospital, McZeal completed his junior year of high school without physically attending school. He was a homebound student who did his lessons under the watchful eye of a special teacher who came to his house four days a week.
And, for the last few months, McZeal has added running and weightlifting to the menu. He's within a couple of pounds of his playing weight of last year.
"I call him my 'Miracle Baby,' " says Watson, who notes that McZeal threw down his crutches to walk, unassisted, back into his home when he returned from Houston last December.
"Now I can't stop my little swinger," she says. "He's been doing his weights and everything in the gym. He's been practicing, and doing pretty good."
Memorial's offensive coordinator, Kenny Harrison, would like nothing better than to have McZeal back in his arsenal of receivers. And he adds, there's really no big hurry.
The Titans don't open their 2005 season until Sept. 3, when they host Tyler John Tyler. Their first District 22-5A game isn't until Sept. 23, at Humble.
"There's no rush, because we know what he can do," Harrison says. "He was a big-time player and, hopefully, he'll get back.
"But he can take it slow; he's a smart kid who picks up things easily. He can help us. He's a big-time player and he didn't lose his job (because of the health scare). Nobody out-played him."
From those dark days last fall when it was unknown from one minute to the next whether he would live or die, no one out-fought Jeremy McZeal, either.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Dave Rogers - The News staff writer Posted: 08/08/05 - 10:35:25 pm CDT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A blood clot in his lung killed Jeremy McZeal late last October.
Twice.
But the Memorial High School student came back from the dead.
"I kept praying," his mother, Stacey Watson, recalled recently. "The Lord gave him back to me."
Now McZeal is looking to rejoin the Titans' football team.
A little more than seven months after being released from Houston hospitals where he spent nearly 60 days -- some of it on a ventilator, much of it in intensive care -- and wasted away to as few as 114 pounds, the 6-foot-2, 183-pound wide receiver wants to reclaim his spot as a starter for Memorial's football team.
Preseason drills begin this afternoon. How soon McZeal is cleared to take part depends on a mound of paperwork.
His mother has given her OK.
"He can go back and play," she says. "He sweated me, because I wasn't going to let him play. But you know you can't stop him. The doctor said he was healthy enough."
McZeal, who has been working out on his own since March rebuilding his body, says he has already delivered some recent medical test results to school officials.
"I've got to go up there Monday and see what they're going to say about that," he said.
Dean Colbert, Memorial's fourth-year head coach, is excited about McZeal's progress.
"He doesn't have all his clearances," to return, "but he does have partial clearance," the coach says. "We're working on full clearance. It looks like we should be able to get that.
"But even if he doesn't come back, it's apparent he's come such a long way. If he doesn't play a down, he's still a major part of our team. He'll definitely give everyone an inspirational boost.
"But in a best-case scenario, he can definitely contribute. He was out there this summer working out and running routes. He looked good.
"But we have to make absolutely certain that the doctors clear him in terms of health."
A distant cousin of Brian McZeal, a star running back for Stephen F. Austin High School in Port Arthur and McNeese State in the 1980s, Jeremy McZeal was leading Memorial High in pass receptions when he says he was injured, in the Titans' seventh game of last year's 6-5 season, against Kingwood.
He was the only player on the team with a catch in each of the three non-district and four district games Memorial played up to that point. He had 20 catches in all for 304 yards and three touchdowns, one each in the last three games he played.
McZeal's knee injury didn't appear serious and his coaches and teammates were surprised when he didn't make it to school the next Friday for the Oct. 22 game at Spring High.
But what nobody knew then was that McZeal has a disorder that causes his blood to clot easily or excessively. It is believed that one or more blood clots that developed as a result of the knee injury eventually traveled through his bloodstream to his lungs and choked off his air supply.
"I don't know where the blood clots occurred from," McZeal says. "My knee really started messing with me. I was limping bad. I could barely walk.
"Every time I tried to run on it or walk, it got worser and worser. I came home and laid down in bed. I got sicker and sicker. My leg got bigger and bigger."
In the second week after hurting his knee, McZeal noticed he was having trouble breathing.
"It kept getting worse," he said.
Finally, on Saturday, Oct. 30, he recalls, "I was laying in the bed and I was trying to call my momma's name, but I couldn't, because I was losing air every time I talked.
"I tried to get up out of the bed and I rolled onto the floor. I told my niece to get Momma. That's all I remember. I blacked out after that."
McZeal was transported to Park Place Hospital in Port Arthur. Then on to Houston's Memorial Hermann Hospital. He was hooked up to a machine to do his breathing for him.
Most of what he knows of those frantic first 100 hours or so is what he was later told.
"They said I passed away," McZeal recalls. "Then I woke up and I was at Park Place. Everybody told me 'You left us for a little while, but they brought you back.'
"Then I left for Houston and they said I left again, but they brought me back again."
"That was just nerve-wracking," Watson, McZeal's mother, recalls. "They tell you he's dead, then he's not dead. I just kept it in my mind, he's talking to his Lord right now, and I kept praying. The Lord gave him back to me."
McZeal says doctors told him both his lungs collapsed, that he suffered heart failure and damage to his kidneys and liver. After he spent nearly a month at Memorial Hermann, doctors transferred him to a Houston rehabilitation hospital.
On Dec. 23, McZeal was released to complete his comeback at home.
"It was the biggest Christmas present I've ever had," says Watson, a mother of nine adopted and biological children who had been making daily trips to Houston to be with Jeremy, her youngest son.
Colbert and his wife Cynthia had also made frequent trips to McZeal's bedside in Houston. They were often accompanied by members of Memorial's coaching staff. Some of the player's Titan teammates made the drive as well.
Even without suiting up for his team's final four games last season, Jeremy McZeal finished 2004 as Memorial High's leading pass-catcher. His 20 grabs were three more than teammate Eric Reynolds, who took over as the Titans' go-to receiver in McZeal's absence.
Another wide receiver, Dustyn Thomas, saw his playing time increase with McZeal being out of the lineup. Reynolds, Thomas and varsity newcomer Brian Melonson were the top wideouts on Memorial's successful 7-on-7 team this summer.
McZeal practiced some in June and July with the Titans' 7-on-7 squad and there was some hope he might gain all the needed medical and school clearances to join Memorial's team for last month's state 7-on-7 tournament.
The paperwork tripped him up.
But McZeal has a history of working his way through paperwork as well as the odds. Because of his two months in the hospital, McZeal completed his junior year of high school without physically attending school. He was a homebound student who did his lessons under the watchful eye of a special teacher who came to his house four days a week.
And, for the last few months, McZeal has added running and weightlifting to the menu. He's within a couple of pounds of his playing weight of last year.
"I call him my 'Miracle Baby,' " says Watson, who notes that McZeal threw down his crutches to walk, unassisted, back into his home when he returned from Houston last December.
"Now I can't stop my little swinger," she says. "He's been doing his weights and everything in the gym. He's been practicing, and doing pretty good."
Memorial's offensive coordinator, Kenny Harrison, would like nothing better than to have McZeal back in his arsenal of receivers. And he adds, there's really no big hurry.
The Titans don't open their 2005 season until Sept. 3, when they host Tyler John Tyler. Their first District 22-5A game isn't until Sept. 23, at Humble.
"There's no rush, because we know what he can do," Harrison says. "He was a big-time player and, hopefully, he'll get back.
"But he can take it slow; he's a smart kid who picks up things easily. He can help us. He's a big-time player and he didn't lose his job (because of the health scare). Nobody out-played him."
From those dark days last fall when it was unknown from one minute to the next whether he would live or die, no one out-fought Jeremy McZeal, either.