Mayfield: QB will fulfill a lifelong dream Saturday
From the minute he arrived at Oklahoma — from his viral Internet dance videos, the charm he’s flashed around campus, his swashbuckling approach to football — it was good to be Baker Mayfield. Still is.
On Saturday, he’ll fulfill a childhood dream by starting at quarterback for two Big 12 schools when Oklahoma faces Akron in a 6 p.m. home-opener to be televised on pay-per-view.
But sometime after the night of April 23, after his father chose to be intentionally vague about Gina Mayfield’s condition, Baker’s life took a devastating turn.
Still unsure about his mother’s condition, he looked the accident up on the Internet.
A Lincoln Town Car had crossed the median — including a barrier cable meant to prevent crossover collisions — and hit another car before colliding with the Toyota RAV4 driven by family friend Adrienne Davis. Gina Mayfield and her sister, Kristi Brooks, were in the backseat.
The RAV4 was forced off the right side of the highway and flipped. The Lincoln hit a truck before finally coming to a stop.
The accident left Jack and Alma Jo Cordell, the occupants of the Lincoln, dead. It is thought the driver suffered a heart attack that left him incapacitated.
Davis’ injuries were initially thought to be lesser than Gina or Kristi, but a few days later, she developed a fatal blood clot.
The next morning, offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley saw Mayfield in the weight room. He saw a different Baker Mayfield.
“We’re around these guys so much, even at that time I could tell something wasn’t right,” Riley said.
He soon found out why and initiated the process to get Mayfield flown to South Carolina. Due to NCAA rules passed in recent years, the athletic department was able to pay for Baker’s transportation.
Gina suffered severe intestinal trauma and damage to the abdominal muscles and her collarbone — mostly because of the seat belt that saved her life.
The family took turns by Gina’s side with James, Baker and his brother Matt all spending time with her in the hospital during her week-long stay.
Even after she was discharged Gina could not travel, so she stayed with her sister for about a month before she was cleared to head home to Lake Travis, Texas, and continue her rehab.
Baker returned to Lake Travis as much as he could during the summer. Gina tried to keep Baker’s focus off of her as much as possible.
She tried to do as much as possible when she went home, but there are still things she can’t fight through — especially lifting anything of significant weight.
Baker and his older brother poke fun at her for that.
“We’ll ask her why she can’t do something and she’ll say she’s been in a car wreck and we’ll go, ‘Oh really?’,” Baker said. “She says it as if we weren’t there or we didn’t know about it so it’s pretty funny.”
Gina said: “We deal with things with humor. That’s how it is, and that’s how it’s been when they were growing up.
“They make fun of it because I’m used to being very self-sufficient and doing things on my own. They’re having to caution me not to do this or not to do that, so when I catch myself and say out loud, ‘Oh gosh, I can’t do that,’ they go, ‘Oh, you were in a wreck, right? Oh yeah.’”
They’ve also found perspective.
“You don’t know what everybody else is going through — the grumpy person behind the counter or whatever,” Gina Mayfield said. “Everybody has their challenges, and some of them are more visible than others. Having that empathy for people, which is something that I’ve tried to teach the boys, I’m hoping that they see that.”
She says the Mayfield family won’t forget what they’ve learned — about life and each other — through the process.
“Every moment is precious,” said Gina, who will be in Norman with her family Saturday to see her son’s dream come true. “I think it’s going to be that way for quite awhile.
“I hope I don’t lose that perspective.”