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https://theathletic.com/434657/2018/07/17/aj-gray-georgia-tech/
A.J. Gray whipped out his iPhone and scrolled deep in his notes app. He found what he was looking for after just 24 seconds.
All he could do is smile.
“April 23 at 8:30 am,” Gray says while shaking his head.
April 23 was one of the worst days of Gray’s life. Gray, his father Allen Gray, his mother Annie Gray, Georgia Tech head coach Paul Johnson and Dr. Jonathan Kim, the team’s cardiologist, piled into a conference room at Emory University Hospital for an appointment scheduled by Kim to discuss an MRI done on Gray’s heart for a team physical.
Gray, a two-year starter in the Yellow Jackets’ secondary, was born with one bicuspid valve causing him to have an enlarged aorta — the largest artery in the body. Georgia Tech was aware of his heart condition and had monitored progress of the growth of his aorta since his enrollment. He passed every physical until April 23 when it was discovered that his aorta grew too large for the team to be comfortable allowing him to play.
“Dr. Kim gave me the news, and I cried,” Gray said. “He told me that they were going to have to pull me from all physical activities. It hurts to this day, still. Life goes on, though. There’s more to life than football.
“Playing in the NFL was the dream, though. It was like my only dream.”
Gray told a few of his teammates shortly after finding out his career was over, but none of them believed him because his roommate, senior defensive end Anree Saint-Amour, calls him one of the jokesters on the team.
Saint-Amour said he was at home with his parents when he got the call from Gray.
“I thought he was playing around,” Saint-Amour told The Athletic. “He had told me about his heart condition before. He had always passed his physicals, so when he told me that he couldn’t play anymore — he said it so calm. I said, ‘Bro, stop playing. Nothing is wrong with you.’ I was waiting for the joke to come, and it never came. It’s one of those things that doesn’t really hit you until a couple of days after.”
The emotions going through Gray after realizing his NFL dream was gone weren’t anger or sadness. Instead, after the initial shock wore off and the tears dried, Gray had a positive outlook.
Johnson had a lot to do with that. Immediately after the family regathered its thoughts and after Gray’s father got up from the conference room floor because ‘it felt like a sledgehammer had hit me,” Johnson presented several opportunities for Gray to remain with the team. He’s still on scholarship but won’t count against the team’s 85 maximum scholarship limit, and he’s now going to be a student assistant safeties coach. His first day of work will be Aug. 2 when Georgia Tech opens preseason practice.
His new dream is to be a coach. Even if coaching doesn’t work out, Gray is set to graduate in May with a degree in business administration with a focus in information technology. Several alums already have reached out to Gray and have offered advice in the industry and potential opportunities after graduation.
Remaining around the team is something that Gray knew he had to do. Johnson, in 2016, said Gray had the “chance to be one of the all-time great players at Georgia Tech.” That quote has stuck with Gray to this day because he said it made him realize that he had the potential to take his game to the next level.
Now he’s going to use his experience to help players like senior Jalen Johnson and junior Christian Campbell, who are some of the favorites to take over for Gray in the secondary.
Saint-Amour said losing Gray is devastating for the Yellow Jackets, but they have no choice other than to move on.
“It sucks when one of your best players is not going to be out there,” Saint-Amour said. “We are a D-I team, though, so the next guy has to just step up. It’s heartbreaking for A.J., though. As a team, we have to keep it moving.”
Georgia Tech was the first program to offer a scholarship to Gray, a two-sport high school star in basketball and football at Washington County. He was thinking about attending North Carolina where his sister, Allisha, played basketball. She ended up transferring to South Carolina and won a national championship with the Gamecocks before getting selected No. 4 overall by the Dallas Wings in the 2017 WNBA Draft.
All of the Grays are athletes. Allen played basketball at West Virginia State, Annie played basketball at South Carolina State, and A.J.’s brother Marlo was a running back at Troy.
Now, Gray is limited to playing pickup basketball, jogging and lifting weights. He can’t do any of those activities giving maximum effort and must be wary of anything coming in contact with his chest. He has to see a cardiologist every six months and likely will need surgery to have his valve replaced when he’s around 50 years old. There is medicine he can take, but it wasn’t recommended for someone his age because a side effect of that medicine is raised blood pressure.
Gray said almost everyone he tells about his condition is shocked at how positive he is about his situation. Most people assume he would be destroyed emotionally. There hasn’t been a day since April 23 when he’s felt sorry for himself because he realized his football career was going to end one day anyway. His time just happened to come sooner than he had hoped.
“After you get over that shock, you look at things in hindsight,” Allen Gray said. “You’re grateful and appreciative that they found this and alerted us to this because the alternative to this was picking up my son off the field. When you put it into the proper perspective, this was probably a blessing.
“The doctors told us that they didn’t know if his condition could have been fatal; however, the possibility was there. With the strain of football and the lifting of the weights, it was a possibility that if his aorta would have kept on expanding at the rate it was. One good hit could separate his aorta. There’s only a 1 percent survival off of that.”
When the family understood the possibility of death, the sadness wore off. After leaving the hospital, the Grays headed to a U-Haul store to rent a truck to pack up Gray’s belongings to move into his new apartment in midtown located three miles from Bobby Dodd Stadium.
The dream was to play in the NFL was but it was never a deal breaker if it didn’t happen. Allen Gray, who is the principal at Washington County, has stressed education to his son. He was thrilled when he signed with Georgia Tech out of high school because he knew if football didn’t continue past college, he could lean on the degree he received from the school.
“The emphasis was always using the scholarship and not doing anything to mess with it,” the elder Gray said. “The fact that there was a Plan B is great. That’s the whole thing about life. When life hits you and you don’t have any other options, that’s when it’s hard to bounce back.”
Gray finished his Georgia Tech career with 147 tackles, three interceptions and two fumble recoveries. He ranked third on the team in tackles as a sophomore and as a junior.
His favorite personal memory came this past season when he was named the ACC Defensive Back of the Week after picking off two passes in a win over North Carolina.
“I’m really going to miss Saturdays,” Gray said. “That’s the best part. It’s game day. I think that first game is going to be normal for me, honestly. I don’t think I’ll be emotional. I’m going to tell the team that they should play like it’s going to be your last game because that is one true statement. … It really is.”
Two Georgia Tech jerseys hang on the wall in Gray’s apartment, where they will remain until his next dream comes to the forefront.
“I just want to get this Georgia Tech degree and see where it takes me,” Gray said. “You know, I just always wanted to play college football, and it has been a blessing to do it here at Georgia Tech.”
https://theathletic.com/434657/2018/07/17/aj-gray-georgia-tech/
A.J. Gray whipped out his iPhone and scrolled deep in his notes app. He found what he was looking for after just 24 seconds.
All he could do is smile.
“April 23 at 8:30 am,” Gray says while shaking his head.
April 23 was one of the worst days of Gray’s life. Gray, his father Allen Gray, his mother Annie Gray, Georgia Tech head coach Paul Johnson and Dr. Jonathan Kim, the team’s cardiologist, piled into a conference room at Emory University Hospital for an appointment scheduled by Kim to discuss an MRI done on Gray’s heart for a team physical.
Gray, a two-year starter in the Yellow Jackets’ secondary, was born with one bicuspid valve causing him to have an enlarged aorta — the largest artery in the body. Georgia Tech was aware of his heart condition and had monitored progress of the growth of his aorta since his enrollment. He passed every physical until April 23 when it was discovered that his aorta grew too large for the team to be comfortable allowing him to play.
“Dr. Kim gave me the news, and I cried,” Gray said. “He told me that they were going to have to pull me from all physical activities. It hurts to this day, still. Life goes on, though. There’s more to life than football.
“Playing in the NFL was the dream, though. It was like my only dream.”
Gray told a few of his teammates shortly after finding out his career was over, but none of them believed him because his roommate, senior defensive end Anree Saint-Amour, calls him one of the jokesters on the team.
Saint-Amour said he was at home with his parents when he got the call from Gray.
“I thought he was playing around,” Saint-Amour told The Athletic. “He had told me about his heart condition before. He had always passed his physicals, so when he told me that he couldn’t play anymore — he said it so calm. I said, ‘Bro, stop playing. Nothing is wrong with you.’ I was waiting for the joke to come, and it never came. It’s one of those things that doesn’t really hit you until a couple of days after.”
The emotions going through Gray after realizing his NFL dream was gone weren’t anger or sadness. Instead, after the initial shock wore off and the tears dried, Gray had a positive outlook.
Johnson had a lot to do with that. Immediately after the family regathered its thoughts and after Gray’s father got up from the conference room floor because ‘it felt like a sledgehammer had hit me,” Johnson presented several opportunities for Gray to remain with the team. He’s still on scholarship but won’t count against the team’s 85 maximum scholarship limit, and he’s now going to be a student assistant safeties coach. His first day of work will be Aug. 2 when Georgia Tech opens preseason practice.
His new dream is to be a coach. Even if coaching doesn’t work out, Gray is set to graduate in May with a degree in business administration with a focus in information technology. Several alums already have reached out to Gray and have offered advice in the industry and potential opportunities after graduation.
Remaining around the team is something that Gray knew he had to do. Johnson, in 2016, said Gray had the “chance to be one of the all-time great players at Georgia Tech.” That quote has stuck with Gray to this day because he said it made him realize that he had the potential to take his game to the next level.
Now he’s going to use his experience to help players like senior Jalen Johnson and junior Christian Campbell, who are some of the favorites to take over for Gray in the secondary.
Saint-Amour said losing Gray is devastating for the Yellow Jackets, but they have no choice other than to move on.
“It sucks when one of your best players is not going to be out there,” Saint-Amour said. “We are a D-I team, though, so the next guy has to just step up. It’s heartbreaking for A.J., though. As a team, we have to keep it moving.”
Georgia Tech was the first program to offer a scholarship to Gray, a two-sport high school star in basketball and football at Washington County. He was thinking about attending North Carolina where his sister, Allisha, played basketball. She ended up transferring to South Carolina and won a national championship with the Gamecocks before getting selected No. 4 overall by the Dallas Wings in the 2017 WNBA Draft.
All of the Grays are athletes. Allen played basketball at West Virginia State, Annie played basketball at South Carolina State, and A.J.’s brother Marlo was a running back at Troy.
Now, Gray is limited to playing pickup basketball, jogging and lifting weights. He can’t do any of those activities giving maximum effort and must be wary of anything coming in contact with his chest. He has to see a cardiologist every six months and likely will need surgery to have his valve replaced when he’s around 50 years old. There is medicine he can take, but it wasn’t recommended for someone his age because a side effect of that medicine is raised blood pressure.
Gray said almost everyone he tells about his condition is shocked at how positive he is about his situation. Most people assume he would be destroyed emotionally. There hasn’t been a day since April 23 when he’s felt sorry for himself because he realized his football career was going to end one day anyway. His time just happened to come sooner than he had hoped.
“After you get over that shock, you look at things in hindsight,” Allen Gray said. “You’re grateful and appreciative that they found this and alerted us to this because the alternative to this was picking up my son off the field. When you put it into the proper perspective, this was probably a blessing.
“The doctors told us that they didn’t know if his condition could have been fatal; however, the possibility was there. With the strain of football and the lifting of the weights, it was a possibility that if his aorta would have kept on expanding at the rate it was. One good hit could separate his aorta. There’s only a 1 percent survival off of that.”
When the family understood the possibility of death, the sadness wore off. After leaving the hospital, the Grays headed to a U-Haul store to rent a truck to pack up Gray’s belongings to move into his new apartment in midtown located three miles from Bobby Dodd Stadium.
The dream was to play in the NFL was but it was never a deal breaker if it didn’t happen. Allen Gray, who is the principal at Washington County, has stressed education to his son. He was thrilled when he signed with Georgia Tech out of high school because he knew if football didn’t continue past college, he could lean on the degree he received from the school.
“The emphasis was always using the scholarship and not doing anything to mess with it,” the elder Gray said. “The fact that there was a Plan B is great. That’s the whole thing about life. When life hits you and you don’t have any other options, that’s when it’s hard to bounce back.”
Gray finished his Georgia Tech career with 147 tackles, three interceptions and two fumble recoveries. He ranked third on the team in tackles as a sophomore and as a junior.
His favorite personal memory came this past season when he was named the ACC Defensive Back of the Week after picking off two passes in a win over North Carolina.
“I’m really going to miss Saturdays,” Gray said. “That’s the best part. It’s game day. I think that first game is going to be normal for me, honestly. I don’t think I’ll be emotional. I’m going to tell the team that they should play like it’s going to be your last game because that is one true statement. … It really is.”
Two Georgia Tech jerseys hang on the wall in Gray’s apartment, where they will remain until his next dream comes to the forefront.
“I just want to get this Georgia Tech degree and see where it takes me,” Gray said. “You know, I just always wanted to play college football, and it has been a blessing to do it here at Georgia Tech.”
