Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Learning from tragedy
Brother’s experience shaped FAU football player’s path.
BOCA RATON — The number always meant something to Florida Atlantic safety Jalen Young.
His stepfather, Douglass Parris, wore No. 18 when he played defensive back at Troy University during the 1980s. Three years ago, it took on a different importance.
Young switched jerseys from No. 3 to that special number before his high school senior season to pay tribute to his younger brother, Antonio, who also wore 18 before a gunshot wound to the head left him unable to play football again.
“He was just so excited to play football,” Jalen Young said. “Before everything happened, he was like, ‘I’m going to be No. 18 this year, I’m going to be No. 18.’ … When they told me my brother could never play football again, I was like, ‘I’m going to wear this number for my brother.’ Since then, it’s been my number.”’
Even though Antonio’s days of playing running back are over, he continues to experience it through his brother on Saturdays. A junior, Jalen is the Owls’ leader in the secondary. He is tied for third nationally with five interceptions, including three in a victory against Marshall two weeks ago. Young is also the team’s third-leading tackler (56). No one has been more thrilled by production than his little brother, who goes to every home game.
“When I get to see my brother in person, I get joy,” said Antonio, who goes by AJ. “It’s not like any other college game I see on TV.”
One of Jalen’s greatest joys this season, even more than the Owls’ 7-3 record enter-
“When I get to see my brother in person, I get joy.” Antonio Young, on watching his brother Jalen play for FAU
ing Saturday’s game against Florida International in the Shula Bowl, has been meeting his family outside the locker room after victories. He greets each with a hug, an extra tight one for the brother who is only alive because of what doctors and family call a miracle.
On July 3, 2014, Antonio, just 13 at the time, was shot in the head by a friend while they played with a pellet rifle in a home across the street. The shooting, later determined an accident, was triggered by an argument. Antonio was pronounced dead at the scene.
Jalen heard the news from his mother Charkata Parris, who phoned him in tears. An hour after shopping for groceries for their annual family Fourth of July picnic, she was racing east across Highway 98 to meet Young at St Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach.
“The nurse that greeted me, her words were, ‘He won’t make it through the night, we are just keeping him comfortable,’ ” Parris said.
It was the exact opposite of what the family expected when they moved from Belle Glade when Jalen was in middle school. They left to escape its sometimes violent environment. According to FBI crime data, Belle Glade is the 15th-most dangerous city in Florida.
“The whole time I’m thinking, ‘My parents moved me from Belle Glade to get away from stuff like this,’ ” Jalen Young said.
The good news was Antonio’s heart began to beat during the Trauma Hawk helicopter ride. He underwent hours of surgery on his skull but remained in a coma for two weeks.
Jalen’s first visit to the hospital remains a painful memory.
“To see him with tubes sticking out of his head was tough,” Jalen said. “The front of his skull was removed. He had nothing up there. He looked over at me, and I just started crying.”
The tears eventually turned to smiles. During Antonio’s rehab he had to learn to walk again, and Jalen would arrive at the hospital with football in hand. They practiced juke moves in the hallway, and the hospital staff would be overcome with emotions watching the brothers interact.
Antonio kept his feelings inside, because he never wanted to cry in front of his brother.
“When Jalen came, I’d just get excited,” Antonio said. “I wanted to prove to him that I was strong. I didn’t want him to see me weak.”
A month and two more surgeries later, Antonio was released from the hospital. The third surgery required a portion of his brain to be removed but he has made a full recovery. Antonio, now 16, has a report card mostly of A’s and B’s as a sophomore at Seminole Ridge — the same high school where his brother was a football star — to prove that.
The near-death experience has only strengthened the brothers’ bond. Antonio often makes the 45-minute trip so he can hang out in Jalen’s dorm room.
“That was a pivotal moment in their relationship,” Parris said. “They are inseparable now.”
Conversations between the brothers mostly center on the thought of Antonio returning to the football field. The family has met with specialists, with opinions varying. Most say it’s too risky. Antonio makes up for the void by playing basketball and running track, which involve a lot less contact. On the track, he always wears No. 18 and would do the same on the basketball court if it weren’t for his favorite NBA player Kyrie Irving. He dons No. 2, the number Irving wore with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Neither sport brings much joy as football, but Antonio has already shifted focus toward pursuing a career in law enforcement.
“Honestly, I’ve learned to cope with it,” Antonio said. “Every time Jalen is out there on the field, I get chills down my spine. Just seeing him out there with the same last name, it makes it feel like we’re both out there. I love him for what he did. I’m just accepting the fact that I can’t play anymore.”
The ordeal has made Jalen Young more appreciative of life. He often tells friends and families to be careful when they leave the house. Each time his brother heads out, Jalen says, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“It made me think differently,” Jalen Young said. “It just made me realize that, ‘Damn, I can be here for this and gone the next moment.”