The Sooners’ sixth-year defensive lineman, who’s been working as a coach, talked Friday after being forced to step away from football; ‘It absolutely stung’.
Jacob Lacey was unable to comprehend the entire situation.
Blood clots? Again?
“At first, I didn’t want to believe it, honestly,” Lacey told me. “There’s no way. I’m 23 now. There is no way that could happen twice.”
Lacey, Oklahoma’s senior defensive tackle who transferred from Notre Dame last year, spoke to the media after practice on Friday, his first public comments since head coach Brent Venables revealed in March that Lacey had to retire due to a recurrence of life-threatening blood clots.
“At first the doctor kind of told me and I was like, ‘Nah, you’re lying,'” Lacey recalled.” “And then it was kind of a clear hit. When I received the message, I mentally thought, ‘You’re done.’ I was holding on to it a little. The doctor stated I would have to take medication for the rest of my life. So, if that’s the case, I can’t participate. When he told me that, I knew.”
Lacey missed parts of the 2023 offseason and preseason, but was able to manage his ailment with medicine. He returned early last year and was a reliable player on the Sooners’ defensive interior.
This time, he maintained, returning to the field was impossible.
“Honestly, I just took it for what it was,” Lacey explained. “Doctors are doing their jobs, too, and being as truthful as they can. So when I heard the news, it really stung.
“I took it square on the chin and realized I had to recover from it. I didn’t want it to keep me down. I didn’t want to become someone I wasn’t meant to be. “I just wanted to keep moving forward.”
Lacey, a sixth-year senior and graduate student from Bowling Green, Kentucky, detailed the terrifying episode with remarkable precision.
“Think it was around Tuesday that week, I was having some blood in my spit, coughing up,” he recalls. “I kept working out, thinking I had some throat difficulties. I kept going since my pulse and oxygen levels had been fine all week; all I was coughing up was blood. Then, around that Friday, I began experiencing pain in my shoulder and left lung area. Saturday awoke, unable to stand or breathe.
“I drove myself to the hospital.” Nobody was home, so I just felt like, ‘Just go.’ Fortunately, a new hospital has opened at exit 112 (off Interstate 35), near Tecumseh (Road). I went up there, and happily, nobody was inside. They got me in. Hopefully it was simply shoulder ache. However, within 24 hours, he had moved from the weight room to a hospital bed. “It’s pretty crazy.”
Lacey isn’t interested in retirement in its current form. Not yet. He is clearly still adjusting to being a “former football player.” That title was always on the horizon, of course, but it arrived much sooner than he had anticipated.
“It is different, for sure,” Lacey stated. “It was definitely a huge blow, mentally, at first.”
Lacey instantly opted to stay in Norman and continue his graduate studies for his MBA. He also serves as the team’s student assistant coach and spends every day with his teammates.
“What I focused on is the little things,” according to him. “We have players coming in who could be fantastic. I tried to help them as much as possible. I concentrated on that. I concentrated on waking up, knowing that I could help those guys improve. Unfortunately, I can’t modify my role. So I’m going to improve other people while I can. It has been going nicely. Coaching is definitely different. But it’s the next best thing to being outside.
“I know being down and sulky and sad – that doesn’t really help out anybody. I had my moment there in the hospital. But I can make an impact on these young guys. Even the guys around me like DT (Da’Jon Terry), we have a great relationship. I didn’t want to lose that. Coach (Todd) Bates, Coach V (Brent Venables), they’ve been nothing but great. The place around you, you always want to make it better, and that’s what I want to do.”
Armed with a degree from Notre Dame in industrial design (he also minored in business economics) and only a few weeks from attaining his Master of Business Administration, Lacey is glad to help the team and his teammates where he can, but he’s got more than just an eye on the future.
“Honestly, not sure about the coaching,” he said. “I love what it does for me and I love what it does for the people around me. But I did get an education and want to be able to use that in the business world or otherwise. Right now, I’m kind of interviewing at different aspects of my life while keeping this option open as well.”
Lacey can attest from an up-close perspective: he’s been impressed so far with the Sooners’ young defensive linemen.
“They’re going to surprise a lot of people,” he said. “They are younger. Unfortunately I’m not there to help. But you have a great leader like DT. Davon Sears, he’s been in the game for six years. G-Baby (Gracen Halton) has been around the scheme for a while even though it’s a little different with Coach (Zach) Alley, but the same concepts. So the young guys are catching on quick. I think they’re going to surprise a lot of people.”
