Chris Jones did everything right in starting his football career at Northwestern.
He redshirted his freshman year because he wanted to do more than just play special teams.
He went all out in practice so that he could be an impact player when he finally got his chance.
And then, three quarters into the first game of his sophomore season, Jones got hit from behind, tore his anterior cruciate ligament and all his hard work went out the window.
“It was a freak thing,” Jones said. “The ACL is the dreaded injury. It always lies in the back of a player’s mind.”
The injury came during a routine punt in the third quarter of the Wildcats’ home opener last September against Miami (Ohio). Jones lined up at left guard, got by his man and broke down field to tackle the returner.
And while Jones never saw the RedHawk player coming at him, he heard his knee pop as he fell to the ground.
“I tried to get up, but I fell down,” Jones said. “I tried to stand up again, but I collapsed. I thought to myself, ‘It happened to me.'”
Jones’ worst fears were confirmed a few minutes later as he sat on the bench. After running a few tests, Dr. Howard Sweeney, the Cats’ head physician, told him, “Sorry son. It’s your ACL.”
What Sweeney didn’t say but Jones later learned was: Sorry son, you won’t play again this season. Sorry son, after you have surgery you won’t be able to bend your leg for a month. Sorry son, you’re going to have to depend on people to do things for you for a while.
Sorry son, you’ve lost a year of eligibility.
Jones had surgery Sept. 21, the same day classes began at NU. For a week and a half, he couldn’t even move his leg.
When he finally left the hospital, he had dropped from 245 to 220 pounds.
“I looked like a skeleton after surgery,” Jones said. “I didn’t even recognize myself.”
Jones had a “rough, rough first week” back at his dorm. His dad came and stayed with him because Jones could barely get out of bed.
But once his dad left, Jones was forced to rely on friends to do most of the things he used to do by himself. And that wasn’t easy for him to accept.
“I didn’t want any pity from other people,” Jones said. “I had to learn to rely on others. My friends were always there for me.”
One of Jones’ friends, defensive end Pete Chapman, said he expected Jones might have a hard time asking people for help.
“That’s just Chris’ personality,” Chapman said. “He’s stubborn and he wants to do everything by himself. We just tried to pitch in where he would let us.”
Jones let his friends help him at home, but when it came to rehab, he did it on his own.
Jones spent five days a week, between five and seven hours a day, rehabbing. During that stint, Jones had little contact with his team and much time to think about returning to the lineup next season.
“My livelihood had been spending 10 hours a day with between 75 and 80 guys (on the team),” Jones said. “Watching us not do the best this season bothered me. I would like to think I could have made a few plays here and there.”
Jones’ rehab proceeded without problems and he was planning to return to the field at the Cats’ first spring practice on March 30. He was nearly back to full speed. It looked like the waiting was almost over.
But a meeting with his doctor in mid-March put a dent in his comeback plans.
Right before Spring Break, Jones’ doctor told him an MRI showed a possibility of another torn ACL.
“Thinking I might have retorn my ACL brought a tear to my eye,” Jones said. “I had put my rehab before everything.”
For 10 days, Jones sat on the beaches in Key West, Fla., hanging out with friends and wondering if he would miss another year of football.
“Knowing him as well as I know him, I could tell (the possibility that he had torn his ACL again) really bothered him,” Chapman said. “But on the surface, if you didn’t know him, he didn’t really let anybody know how it was affecting him.”
When Jones returned to NU, he had surgery on his knee to see exactly what the problem was.
The doctor found that Jones’ femur and tibia were putting too much stress on his ACL graft, which was keeping him from getting full mobility in his knee — a problem that was easily fixed.
But more importantly, Jones had not torn his ACL a second time.
“It really would have been devastating if it had happened again,” Chapman said.
Spring football practice has since started, and Jones is still on the sideline, able to participate in only non-contact drills.
But Jones hopes to return to the field for the last week and a half of spring ball.
“I need that last week of spring ball for myself, so I know I can run full speed like I did and so I know I can play like I did,” Jones said.
“You have to have a lot of confidence to play football and being out seven-plus months hurt my confidence. But you’re only given pain like this if you can take it. Anything can be overcome.”
And whether Jones puts the pads back on this spring, or if he has to wait until the summer, the first time he steps back onto the field and lines up for a play, he’ll do it the right way.
“Every day he misses, it tears at him,” said NU linebackers coach Jay Peterson. “His work ethic has not slipped a bit and we’re all looking forward to him getting out here.”
