

Jacob Rainey works out on Virginia’s practice field. Two years after he played quarterback for his high school team with a prosthetic, he is a student coach for the Cavaliers’ football team and hopes to fulfill his dream of playing major college football. (Norm Shafer/For The Washington Post)

The lights were on at the corner of Wertland and 12th streets, the moon still out one morning last month, when Jacob Rainey emerged from his off-campus house and grabbed one of the mopeds locked up around the porch. His parents initially didn’t want him riding it, he explained as he maneuvered his prosthetic right leg over the seat and revved the engine. But he soon convinced them it would be the most convenient mode of transportation around the grounds of the University of Virginia.

Rainey weaved through the performing arts center to cut time off his morning commute, leaning into the curves the entire way. His left foot balanced the black bike at stoplights. His right leg never moved until he parked the moped with the others behind the McCue Center, headquarters of Virginia’s football team.

More than three years after a freak football accident altered his life forever and two years after he made national headlines by returning to the field as the first high school quarterback with an above-the-knee amputation, Rainey’s days are still consumed by football. They begin with a 7 a.m. team meeting.

He is one of the first to file into the auditorium-style meeting room, and he sits in the second row on a seat marked “No. 50.” Coach Mike London comes in last, with a message about “keeping an edge” after the Cavaliers’ surprising start to the season.

Soon after, Rainey walks into the team’s locker room and sits in front of a stall underneath a nameplate that reads, “Jacob Rainey,” right between “No. 49 Zach Swanson” and “No. 51 Zach Bradshaw.” Linebacker Micah Kiser shouts over the din of rap music, “Hey, Coach Rainey, what’s the plan today,” a joke since nobody, not even Rainey, takes his official title of student-coach that seriously.

“He’s one of us,” wide receiver Canaan Severin said. “He’s our teammate.”

Except in one way: Rainey, as of now, is not able to play major college football. So the 225-pound sophomore spends most mornings at Virginia’s football facility, learning the ropes as a coach during practice and staying in shape with daily workouts before heading to class, his mind on a goal that might not be attainable.

“I have dreams to play again, and I think my family and my best friends and people close in my life think I’m capable of doing it, and I think I’m capable of doing it,” he said. “But I need an opportunity.”



Jacob Rainey’s duties for the Cavaliers football team include leading quarterback drills, editing film, compiling scouting reports and entertaining recruits. “He saves me a ton of time,” offensive coordinator Steve Fairchild said. (Norm Shafer/For The Washington Post)

‘Wired a little differently’

When Rainey entered Virginia’s football program in August 2013 as a preferred walk-on, accepting a long-standing invitation by London, his story was well known.

A promising 6-foot-3 dual threat quarterback at Woodberry Forest, an all-male boarding school about 35 miles outside his home town of Charlottesville, Rainey ruptured the popliteal artery around his right knee while being tackled on a routine quarterback sneak during a scrimmage at Flint Hill School in Oakton in August 2011. Doctors were eventually forced to amputate part of his right leg. The following season, as a senior in high school, he returned to the field and threw two touchdown passes in limited action.

Rainey’s remarkable recovery and comeback were detailed in The Washington Post and the New York Times and featured on ESPN. Tim Tebow hosted him at a Denver Broncos game.

But London nonetheless had him stand before the entire team near the end of Virginia’s 2013 preseason. Rainey then shared the gory details of those first few days after the injury occurred — the sleepless nights, the complications in the hospital and the emotions upon realizing his football career might be over.

“I think that evening kind of made me part of the team and just let everyone know about me,” Rainey recalled.

From there, Rainey carved out a daily role as offensive coordinator Steve Fairchild’s de facto intern. He began learning the playbook. He took the team’s young quarterbacks through drills. He kept them on script during practice and cut up film after it was over. He went to quarterbacks’ meetings. He put together opponent scouting reports. He helped entertain recruits on game day. “He saves me a ton of time,” Fairchild said.

Added quarterback Andrew Mackay, one of Rainey’s roommates: “He’s doing it all on what his goals are, which nobody really knows. He knows what he wants to accomplish, whether that’s playing again or doing whatever he wants to do. It’s not something that he has to talk about or wants to talk about maybe. Honestly, I don’t know why he does it. But there’s something about him. He’s wired a little differently.”

Here’s what Rainey doesn’t tell most of them: At Woodberry Forest, it was uncomfortable when “people felt bad for me just because they knew” about his injury. He enjoys being part of the crowd now. He may well end up being a coach one day, but teaching is “not nearly as rewarding as doing it yourself.” It still hurts to watch practice from the sideline. In the spring, he even debated pursuing a spot in Virginia’s prestigious McIntire School of Commerce and spending less time working with the program.

But football kept tugging at Rainey. His best friends are football players. He eats every meal with them. He takes classes with them. He lives with them. In August, one of them — Severin — changed his uniform to No. 9, Rainey’s old high school number. He feels the same sense of accountability as them.

“I don’t want to be that guy that doesn’t show up,” Rainey said. “I don’t want to let people down.”

Ultimately, though, he still longs to be on the field with them.

“When he’s in the locker room, he’s on the field, you can really see this is a kid that did everything right and just didn’t get a very good situation,” said quarterback Brendan Marshall, one of Rainey’s closest friends. “It’s almost a reminder that you’ve got to take every advantage you can.”



Like many members of the football team, Rainey gets around campus on a moped despite the initial reservations of his parents. “He’s just one of the guys,” said Andrew Mackay, a quarterback and one of Rainey’s roommates. (Norm Shafer/For The Washington Post)

His story isn’t over

Rainey’s playing future is a delicate topic, one broached several times with Virginia administrators “way above Mike London,” according to Rainey’s mother, Kathy.

Jacob Rainey explored attending a lower-division college where he might have a better opportunity to play but ultimately chose to pursue his dream of being part of a major program. He and his family are grateful for the preferred walk-on spot at Virginia, although Jacob has since been transitioned to student coach, essentially a volunteer position, and does not count toward the team’s 105-man roster.

London likes having him around and how his story resonates with players. But the Raineys initially believed the role came with the potential for the quarterback one day to be medically cleared to take part in practice and maybe even a game.

“There’s a lot of things that kind of stand in the way of it,” Jacob Rainey said. “At first, we talked about playing here, but there’s just stuff above us that kind of restricts that.”

Rainey played his senior year at Woodberry Forest on a prosthetic leg designed for motocross riders, not running. His new prosthetic, given to him last year by Amputee Blade Runners, a Nashville-based nonprofit, is outfitted with a hydraulic metal knee he had to train his brain to use, a curved orange blade to simulate the spring in his step and a cut-in-half sneaker for traction. He has already rigged the prosthetic with extra padding to increase how frequently the blade can bend at the knee because side-to-side and sudden movement remain a concern.

Rainey’s still not exactly sure how the cutting-edge prosthetic works.

“It’s just faster,” Rainey said. “I should probably know at this point. Everybody’s always asking.”

Rainey goes through his daily workout of 100-yard sprints alone on Virginia’s turf practice field, while other team members trickle out of the locker room and head to class. He moves like an 18-wheeler: slow to accelerate but hard to slow down. He would have to be smarter and get rid of the ball quickly to play college football.

There is precedent. Neil Parry, wearing a prosthetic, played on special teams for Division I-A San Jose State in 2003, three years after his right leg was amputated below the knee after an injury suffered during a game. Koni Dole, whose lower right leg was amputated after he was injured in a high school game, is a preferred-walk-on freshman at Montana State of the Football Championship Subdivision, listed on the roster as a linebacker.

But unprompted, London summed up the issue with a game scenario that routinely faces quarterbacks: “I just keep envisioning [Virginia defensive end] Eli Harold coming around the edge and . . . I don’t know.”

Kathy Rainey said of her son’s playing prospects: “I think he’s realistic. Even if it doesn’t happen, he’ll figure it out. I just don’t think his story is over. He’s not going to be limited by a part of his body.”

She was reminded of that when talk turned to her son’s moped. “Let’s not add this to the mix,” she thought when Jacob first mentioned the idea of buying one. But he took it on a test drive, turned left a bunch of times and had no issues. He almost wiped out the first time he took it on the street and turned right.

Rainey didn’t mention this as he strapped on his helmet following an exam full of Virginia football players and started the engine again more than eight hours after waking up. He was one of the first guys in his class to get one, and as the pack of black mopeds sped away, it was hard to tell which driver had the prosthetic leg.

“He’s just one of the guys, and I can’t stress that any more,” Mackay said. “He’s one of our good friends. He’s our teammate. He’s one of the guys that we’re going through college with that you’re going to develop a bond with for the rest of your life.”