By: Colby Wilson, Assistant Director of Athletics/External Relations & Communications (Exclusive for LetsGoPeay.com)
Last winter, as a he was about to graduate, Eli Jones had a conversation with his mom.
He had devoted four years to his career at Western Kentucky, earned his degree, had played Division I football. He thought about the future, where he was in life, and what he wanted his future to be. He thought it might be time to let college football go.
Ashley had other ideas.
"She said, 'You can only play for so long,'" he recalled after his first game as a Governor. "'I know you love football. Why wouldn't you take your fifth year, whether it's at Western Kentucky or elsewhere, and play the game you love while you have a chance to?' I thought about that and battled with that, but at the end of the day, she was right. I love the game. I knew my parents would support whatever I did, but my mom, she was a big part of what ultimately convinced me to play my fifth year."
The poignancy of the moment is matched only by the tragedy that she never got to enjoy it with her son. In July, Ashley Jones passed away after a courageous battle with breast cancer. She was 54 years old.
Eli remembers the moment, the shock, of the initial diagnosis. In the middle of his senior football season in Bowling Green, his parents FaceTimed him with the news.
"I was scared," he said. "But my mom, she was super faithful. I was convinced she would be healed."
Football had always been a connective activity for the Jones family. All four brothers played football in high school, and youngest brother Gavin is starting his freshman season at Brown. Ashley was a boy mom, a football mom through and through, who served as the booster club president at Knoxville Catholic for several years.
There was one beautiful moment for Eli and his mother that stuck with him after he moved to Clarksville. At the conclusion of spring ball, after the spring showcase, there was a massive team meal with players and their families.
"Coach Faris came up to my mom and just told her, 'Your son is going to play for me,'" Eli said. "That really warmed her heart and she had a lot of gratitude toward him for that. She loved the fact that I felt loved and welcomed here."
It would be the last time Ashley got to watch him play football.
Eli spent his summer back in Knoxville, with his family, being present, there during hospital visits, as his mother's condition grew worse. Due back in Clarksville in May, he got permission to stay through the middle of June before returning to campus, then spent weekends going back and forth to be with her.
Eli's life boiled down to the barest essences during this time. Clarksville. Class. Football. Knoxville. Repeat. It would be easy to become isolated, withdrawn, focus narrowed to only what was directly in front of him. His teammates and coaches, though, remained engaged with him at all times, encouraging, texting, keeping him close.
"If I wasn't here, they knew where I was," he said. "I felt supported and loved by all the guys, especially the ones in the linebacker group. When my mom passed, the support…"
He paused.
"At my mom's funeral, Chris Parson was there. Braylon Harmon was there. Antori Hamilton was there. The specialists were there. Other players. The coaching staff. The thing is, those guys didn't all really know. They didn't know much of what was going on, with me and my family, but they took the time to come and support me and be there for me. And that meant everything."
Ashley passed away on July 14; camp report day was July 27. Eli was preparing for a final season without one of his biggest supporters in the stands. Most of us would barely have the strength and mental capacity to simply get through the day toting a wound so raw and fresh.
Eli went into camp, did the work and emerged with a job in the starting lineup, playing some of the most inspired ball of anyone on the roster.
"I mean, it's difficult," he said. "The person who has been my biggest supporter, the person who loved me the most, she's not here anymore. All of me wishes she was still here. But even though I've had this loss, this heartbreaking loss, where else would I rather be than playing this game I love with these guys who I feel really connected to?"
Thursday night, Eli made his Austin Peay debut. He registered seven tackles, including 1.5 for loss, and shared a third-quarter sack with Kelton Crisp. Afterward, Faris presented him with a game ball in the locker room.
None of it soothes the sting of an incalculable loss. But Eli knows he made her proud, Thursday night and every single day.
"That's what my dad said," he said of Van Jones, who made the trip to watch Eli's debut against Gardner-Webb. "He came up to me at the fence at the stadium and just said, 'Your mom would have been so proud.' I think she would have been happy just seeing me play the game I love so freely."
