Dein erstes Forum » ppier for Marcus.It certainly looks to be

Nazair Jones came home after his Roanoke Rapids (N.C.) High team lost in the state playoffs so wiped out from his exceptional performance that he fell asleep on the couch.The next morning, he got up like normal. But when he tried to walk, Jones could not move. He screamed for his mother and sister to help him. Excruciating pain gripped his legs. They called an ambulance and he went to the hospital.Doctors could not explain why a healthy, active 15-year-old boy suddenly felt paralyzed from the waist down. They gave him a shot for the pain and sent him home.Yet the pain continued for weeks. Jones alternated between using crutches, a walker and a wheelchair to get around and started losing weight. He saw other doctors, but all of them were baffled.Seeing him walk with a walker, a teenager who is 6-foot-5, I thought I was losing my son, said his mother, Tammy.At his lowest point, Jones got down to 215 pounds and spent weeks bedridden in a hospital. Months of rehab followed. Today, the junior weighs nearly 300 pounds and is the key player in the middle of a North Carolina defensive front that faces yet another huge test Saturday, against No. 12 Florida State and a resurgent Dalvin Cook.Considering the odds, Jones has made a remarkable turnaround. I had to put my mind to it, Jones said. I was not going to let that be the end of my career.But nobody could say for certain whether Jones would play football again. North Carolina coach Larry Fedora had seen Jones on tape and immediately saw why the four-star recruit was one of the top defensive line prospects in the state. He was phenomenal, Fedora said.Fedora wanted to offer a scholarship, but word had gotten to him that Jones was struggling physically. Still, he went to the high school to meet Jones for the first time. During the visit, Jones tried to hide his discomfort and the crutches, knowing a football scholarship was on the line. But after about five minutes, Jones asked Fedora, If you dont mind, could I sit down? I cant stand up Im in so much pain.Fedora did not see an imposing defensive lineman; he saw a thin young man who could hardly stand. He left that first meeting without offering a scholarship.The Jones family kept searching for answers about his condition. As the pain escalated, Jones was referred to the University of North Carolina Childrens Hospital, about two hours from his hometown. He was admitted on his 16th birthday.Jones went through a series of exams, from ultrasounds on his legs to bloodwork to nerve tests. Even then, doctors looked at him, puzzled. His mother worried even more. If the best doctors at UNC could not answer this, who would?At this point, Jones could not walk. His legs and feet swelled grotesque amounts and were so sensitive, any little touch produced unspeakable pain.I was still in shock because I had just played a great game, even though we lost, and now I cant walk and I dont know why, so I wasnt really focused on the pain even though that was the worst part, Nazair Jones recalled recently. It didnt look human how swollen my legs were and the crazy thing is, I would be in the hospital bed and the swelling went from one leg to another. It alternates and does whatever it wants to do.Finally, doctors came back with a diagnosis: complex regional pain syndrome, a chronic disease that affects the nervous system. To this day, nobody has been able to tell Jones why he suddenly became afflicted. His family asked the doctors what would happen to Jones budding football career.The doctor said, Football? We need to see can we get you walking again, Tammy recalled.Once the diagnosis was made, Jones moved into the nearby Ronald McDonald House to begin his extensive rehab. There is no cure for the disease, so doctors often focus on physical rehab and psychotherapy. To manage the pain and swelling, he took ibuprofen and other painkillers. Jones had to relearn how to walk, and spent time in the pool doing water aerobics.The psychotherapy part was much harder to grasp.The weirdest thing I did was this exercise in the mirror, Jones said. I sat on the ground, and they put this long mirror in between your legs. Because I was having so much pain in my legs, it was like my brain was sending pain signals to my feet and my legs, but there was no injury there. So basically, the therapy was me psyching myself into my legs working. I would literally look in the mirror and it would look like both of my legs and I was looking at my right leg, just getting movement and feeling back into my feet at the same time.Once I put my mind to it and started believing in the process, it began to work.Jones stayed at the Ronald McDonald House for two months, then continued his therapy back home. When he returned to school, Jones still needed help walking. But he had a cadre of friends ready to help him out, and they carried his books and backpack for him whenever he needed. Jones began walking normally again in May, and was able to rejoin his travel basketball team for a tournament that summer.But Jones wanted to play football in college, and that remained up in the air. His high school coach, Russell Weinstein, suggested they go to the final North Carolina football camp of the summer, just to show the staff that he was on the road back.Jones had regained the 40 pounds he lost, but he was not in the best shape. He got dehydrated and overheated and needed help from the training staff.He did not look like a D-I defensive lineman that day, Weinstein said. That was right when he got clearance to resume football activities. Naz knew he had to show up and fight the best he could under the circumstances. Coach Fedora was the first one to take the leap of faith and roll the dice.North Carolina offered him a scholarship that day. Weinstein and Jones pulled out of Chapel Hill and headed to Hardees to get something to eat, but Jones could not contain his excitement. He called his mother and said, Guess what! They offered me! Can I take it?Jones had been waiting on North Carolina, and felt it was meant to be, considering the universitys childrens hospital treated and diagnosed him. Weinstein turned the car around, and Jones went up to meet with Fedora.Coach, Jones said. Im a Tar Heel!We went off faith, really, that he was going to be OK, Fedora said. His junior year was phenomenal. It was a no-brainer. I remember just going and standing in that weight room with him thinking, Man, am I going to be able to recruit this kid? ... His comeback, its a heck of a story.Jones still had to play his entire senior football season. His strength and endurance were off, but that did not deter him. Weinstein estimates Jones was at 80 percent -- not bad considering all the time he could not run or practice. Still, his mother fretted over him.His very first game, I was worried he may get hit the wrong way or he may hit somebody the wrong way and if he does he may be paralyzed, Tammy said. I cant even describe how scared and afraid I was when they said he could play. I was down there yelling at the referee, He needs a break!Jones played his entire senior season, then his entire senior basketball season. But he continued to have episodes with the disease. In 2013, his freshman season at North Carolina, he began taking weekly shots of Enbrel, used to treat inflammatory conditions. He still takes those shots and meets with a rheumatologist to help manage the disease.Headed into this season, Fedora said Jones went through the best offseason he has ever had while at North Carolina. Keeping the symptoms at bay is part of everyday life for Jones, but so is working to improve the struggling Tar Heels run defense.That is the job he has wanted for years and years.I try to live in the moment because it can be taken away from you at any point, Jones said. Sometimes through the grind and the heat, you forget about how far you came, but I try to always bounce back on that. There was a point I couldnt even walk, so me being here to lead this group on the defensive line is a blessing. Cheap Nike NBA Jerseys . The defence is doing its part, too. Drew Brees threw a pair of touchdown passes in the first half and the guys on the other side made sure that was enough, sending the Saints to a 17-13 victory over the Atlanta Falcons on Thursday night. Stitched Basketball Jerseys . -- Sergey Tolchinksy scored his second goal of the game 3:56 into overtime as the Sault Ste. http://www.cheapbasketballjerseysoutlet.com/ . The 26-year-old Ireland striker, who has four goals this season, has signed a three-and-a-half year contract with his new club. Wholesale Basketball Jerseys . -- Mike Smith never saw his first NHL goal go in. Cheap Basketball Jerseys China . Once again, DeLaet finished tied for second at a PGA Tour stop on the weekend, this time at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. The pride of Weyburn, Sask. Marcus Foster hopped on the fast train to fame, riding it for all it was worth from the first stop of high school obscurity all the way to the best Kansas State freshman since Michael Beasley hyperbolic platform.Two-plus years and one school change later, Foster doesnt look back and ask, What happened?Theres no need. He knows exactly how his career went off the tracks. He steered it there.I got cocky. I thought I had it, he said.Sadly, his is not an uncommon story. The zero-to-fame acceleration has ruined more than a few people in more than a few walks of life.Foster is just hoping for an uncommon ending.Its not about redeeming himself, or anything so simple or trite. Because Foster doesnt feel compelled to prove hes changed to outsiders.He has a much bigger challenge in mind.He wants to show himself.I want to get better, he said, as a basketball player, but also as a person.Frankly, Foster is right. He did have it as a freshman.And no one saw it coming.When Bruce Weber first spied Foster on the summer league scene, the Kansas State coach saw a blue-collar worker who mixed in on a team full of like-minded players. Foster was relatively unheralded, a top-150 recruit but not even top 10 in his home state of Texas. Weber thought hed be good but not otherworldly good. When Foster arrived at Kansas State, he lived in the gym and in the weight room, working with such a vengeance that Weber started raising his own expectations, envisioning a player who could score upward of 20 points per game.I remember after one of our early games, a coach asked me about him, and then it was just boom! And he kind of burst on the scene, Weber said.Foster scored 25 points in the second game of his college career and continued on a double-figures pace throughout his freshman season. In 33 games, he failed to reach double figures only six times. He scored 34 against Texas, dropped 29 against Baylor, connected on 79 3-pointers for the season and finished the year with 513 points.The following summer, Creighton coach Greg McDermott saw Foster at the LeBron James Skills Academy. McDermott had recruited Foster hard out of high school, ultimately finishing as the runner-up to Kansas State and Weber. He knew Foster well, but the kid he saw working as a counselor that summer wasnt the same one hed recruited. He phoned assistant Steve Lutz, who had developed a great relationship with Foster during this recruitment.I said, Im worried about Marcus, McDermott said. He looks like he thinks hes arrived.Weber had the same fears. The same kid he couldnt get out of the gym as a freshman didnt spend nearly as much time working on his game leading into his sophomore season.The coach and star player butted heads throughout the season, Foster appearing sullen and downright pouty at times. A two-game benching temporarily rejuvenated him into a better version of himself, but by February, things were on the skids again. Weber suspended his best player for three games, and by the end of the season decided to sever ties altogether.Foster was dismissed from the team.He just didnt take care of business, Weber said. Ive been at this a long time ... second chances, third chances, fourth chances, whatever I can do, I do. But he needed to learn how to take care of business.Foster admits at first he was bitter, placing the blame more at Webers feet than at the man in the mirror. With his career and reputation in tatters, Foster reconsidered who really was to blame, recognizing that he had blown his chance at success.You go from high school and nobody is talking about you, to all of a sudden youre on SportsCenter and everybody is talking to you, he said. It went to my head and I didnt handle it right..ddddddddddddIn desperate need of a second chance, Foster called the coach who recruited him during his sophomore season in high school. At the same time, Fosters mother, Alvita, called McDermott as well.I want my son back, she told him.McDermott continued the phone chain, calling Weber to make sure McDermott understood all that went on at Kansas State, and also as a professional courtesy since he was considering bringing Foster to Creighton.I liked him, Weber told McDermott. I didnt like what he had become.Armed with his own gut feeling for the kid he had known for years, and with as much new information as he could gather on the person Foster had become, McDermott decided to roll the dice.I knew exactly what I was getting myself into, he said. And I decided it was worth the risk.Maurice Watson Jr. knows a thing or two about feeling out of place. After two years at Boston University, the guard transferred to Creighton, bringing his Philadelphia attitude into the Midwestern heart of Omaha, Nebraska. The two didnt necessarily jibe.Watson didnt have basketball to close the gap, either, since he had to sit out a full season under NCAA transfer rules. Then he was sidelined by a broken foot.So when Foster arrived at Creighton, Watson offered two things to his soon-to-be backcourt mate: advice and a clean slate.I didnt want him to think I was going to judge him on what I heard or word of mouth, Watson said. People here will accept you with open arms, but youve got earn it. I also told him that second chances dont come around a whole lot.Foster heeded that advice, using his transfer year on the sideline not just to work on his game but also to readjust his attitude. Determined not to be a burden to either his coaching staff or his teammates, he shut out the other voices who had crammed their way into his head, the ones telling him he was NBA-ready before he had really become college-savvy.He went back to what made him so good as a freshman, chasing basketball with a fervor again. When he arrived on Creightons campus, his body fat had ballooned to 16 percent. Foster had quite literally become fat and happy with his success.Now its down to 8 percent.I realized, just like people can tell you that youre a good player, they very quickly will tell you when youre not good, he said. I had success and then I didnt. You have to work to hold on to it.Weber isnt angry.As his former player continues to rediscover his groove at Creighton, Weber is more philosophical than disappointed.There are a lot of different paths for a lot of kids, he said. If my decision helps him in the long run to get his head right and do what hes supposed to, then I couldnt be happier for Marcus.It certainly looks to be case.The numbers are familiar, to be sure. Foster is averaging 19.4 points per game for 10th-ranked Creighton (8-0), two 15-point nights against Wisconsin and NC State marking his season lows. Hes shooting 51 percent from the floor and 43 percent on 3s, and hes the first player in 30 years to score 15 or more points in each of Creightons first eight games.Yeah, that includes a fella by the name of Doug McDermott.Then theres this:Just the other day, Foster pulled freshman Justin Patton aside. The freshman is averaging 12.8 points and 6.5 rebounds per game and twice has earned Big East Rookie of the Week honors. Hes also an Omaha native, and the city loves its Bluejays, so Patton especially is getting a lot of attention.Hes doing even better early on as a freshman than I did, Foster said. I told him, Whatever you do, dont let it go to your head. ' ' '