Granville teen overcomes all odds to be playoff kicker
GRANVILLE – Davidson Jump grew up as a huge Granville High School football fan, cherishing Friday nights cheering for a school where his dad was a Hall of Fame running back.
The Blue Aces junior is now living that dream as a player. But when eighthseeded Granville takes the field at DeSales’ Alumni Stadium on Friday night against the top-seeded Stallions in a Division III regional quarterfinal, it will mean more to him, and his family, than you could possibly imagine.
He never thought for a second that he would be making his playoff debut as a kicker. In fact, two years ago, he never thought he would play football again after he was diagnosed with a rare condition that could have severely disabled or even killed him. Jump survived and was able to return, albeit with titanium clips in his head after surgery, a blind spot in one eye, and having to re-learn how to read and walk.
He had an arteriovenous malformation (AVM), an abnormal connection between arteries and veins, usually in the brain or spine, which causes a cluster of blood vessels.
There are fewer than 200,000 cases in the United States per year. The problem is usually present at birth, and the arteries and veins in an AVM can rupture, causing bleeding into the brain or spinal cord. In Jump’s case, it was in the brain and could have led to strokes, or even death.
“I was a ticking time bomb,” Jump said.
In March 2018, Davidson was sitting in his eighth-grade class when spots, or floaters, came across his vision. Then, all of a sudden, he couldn’t see anything. Classmates helped get him to the school nurse’s office. His parents, Newark dentist Dr. Benjamin Jump, and his mom, Brett, were notified, and he was taken to Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus.
“On the way there, he had a grand mal seizure, and bit his tongue,” Brett said. “He started to turn blue. He was conscious, but did not know what was going on.”
A follow-up MRI was scheduled, and it might have saved his life. The scan showed the AVM that was in an area of his brain where his vision could be affected. After much research, Ben and Brett settled on neurosurgeons at Boston Children’s Hospital and surgery. A full day was spent on embolization, where a catheter is inserted into the thigh and is routed to the affected area, and the AVM was removed the next day.
It was a delicate operation. “There was a line of residents, from Harvard, watching this. We really weren’t sure what it affected,” Ben said. “They prepare you for the worst,” Davidson added.
In the hospital, Davidson saw his name on a chart, but had trouble putting the letters together. “I could write, spell and talk, but I couldn’t read,” he said. “For a long time, I had to put the letters together to form a word, letter by letter. Even things like a “Stop” sign, I had to think about. I had to re-learn how to read, using computer software, which would prepare words, and I would read them back.”
“He also had to re-learn how to walk and keep his balance,” Brett said. Davidson still has a blind spot in the upper part of his eye, but it has gotten smaller.
Davidson had played football all of his life, mostly as a lineman, in flag football and at the intermediate and middle school levels. His dad starred on a Mid-state League championship team at Granville. But after the surgery, doctors told Davidson the words he didn’t want to hear: He would never play football again, because of the risks of injury to his head.
“There were two things I was not allowed to do, play football and box. I was crushed,” he said. “At the first home Friday night game (of his freshman year), I was in the stands, thinking, ‘ That
should be me out there.’”
At his annual check, his pediatrician noticed he missed football. “She said, ‘Have you thought about kicking?’” Davidson said. “I thought, ‘Well, it would take a lot of effort, and I can’t kick a football 10 yards.’”
The doctor convinced Brett it would be for the best. “She came up to me, and said, ‘He needs to play football,’” Brett said.
Thus began his journey toward becoming a kicker.
“In March of 2019, we went out and kicked a couple of times, but I didn’t know the first thing about kicking,” Ben said. They watched Youtube and worked with a kicking coach for six days.
“I give the kid a lot of credit. It was like an NBA player not knowing how to dribble, but he tackled it head-on.”
Davidson spent a frustrating sophomore year behind a pair of senior kickers. “I did not want to be a JV guy,” he said. “But against Utica for homecoming, I got in and went 2-for-2 (on point after a touchdown, or PAT, kicks). It was surreal.”
That lit a fire under him. In January of this year, he started kicking a lot. As Granville’s Walter Hodges Stadium was being constructed, he was building himself up on the practice field nearby.
When Wes Schroeder took over as Granville football coach, Davidson told him his story, and told him that he wanted to be “the man.”
“We had to get cleared in a couple of areas for him to be able to do it (he only kicks for PATS and field goals). He might have struggled a little at first, but he’s come into his own,” Schroeder said.
Davidson wants to share his experience with other people and has become an ambassador for The Aneurysm AVM Foundation based in San Francisco, where he talks to other AVM patients, many of who are around his age.
His story is no doubt still being written. “It doesn’t feel real,” he said. “If I was back in the eighth grade and you told me this would have happened, I wouldn’t have believed it. It feels like I’m just getting started.” dweidig@gannett.com 740-973-4503
Twitter: @noz75