Please Pray

The doctors say that there's no hope beyond intervention from God, and as a believer, I know how that works, so please pray for this young man who appears to have such a great future ahead of him but may never get to see it. There are two articles here: (1) from ESPN and (2) from the UNC Athletics website.

Family, friends hold bedside vigil for Ray

Associated Press
HACKENSACK, N.J. -- More than two dozen of Jason Ray's family and close friends were at his hospital bedside Sunday, holding a vigil as the University of North Carolina mascot lay gravely injured after being hit by an SUV.

The 21-year-old senior remained on life support and in extremely critical condition
Sunday, two days after he was run down near his hotel in Fort Lee. Ray, who suited up as UNC's ram mascot, Rameses, was in New Jersey for the NCAA men's basketball tournament, a portion of which is being played at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford.

Ray's father, Emmitt, who flew to New Jersey in a friend's private plane after getting word of his son's life-threatening head injuries on Friday, said doctors hold out little hope for his son's recovery "short of the intervention of the Lord."

The UNC mascot had run out to get a burrito and a coke at a nearby convenience store Friday afternoon, and was walking back to his hotel along Route 4 when he was struck from behind by an SUV. The driver stopped immediately to call 911. No charges have been filed.

Ray's top-seeded Tar Heels were facing Georgetown Sunday at 5 p.m. for a spot in the coveted Final Four. It was to be Ray's chance to entertain his biggest crowd ever.

"We've known Jason since he was 11 years old -- he is an awesome kid," said Jodi Stewart, a neighbor of the Ray family who attends the same church in Concord, N.C.
"I never knew a kid who was more full of life. He was excited every day. He loved what he was doing, he loved God, his family, and being the school's mascot. We have not given up hope."

Stewart said about 30 of Ray's family and friends were at Hackensack University Medical Center Sunday, including his parents, Emmitt and Charlotte Ray, two brothers, and five high school friends who lived with Ray in Chapel Hill, N.C. Two students wearing UNC sweat shirts on the hospital grounds declined to speak with a reporter Sunday afternoon.

Stewart said the Rays had Jason when they were in their 40s, and devoted a lot of time to their son. "They cherish this boy. You cannot put into words what this child means to them," she said. "Jason is their life. They live their life for him."

Stewart said Ray was an Eagle scout and was involved in his church. While in high school at Jay M. Robinson High School in Concord, Ray was often seen cheering in the stands at basketball games, she said.

Ray's dad told The Star-Ledger that his son "absolutely loved" dressing up as Rameses, despite the costume's bulk. "It was his way of supporting the team," said Emmitt Ray. "There are things you just can't explain," he continued. "He just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. He wasn't doing anything he wasn't supposed to be doing. He was 200 yards from the hotel."

Police said Gagik Hovsepyan, 51, driver who hit Ray, had a valid driver's license and did not appear to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs. His son was asleep in the
SUV at the time, police said.

At 6-foot-5, Jason Ray was such a commanding presence that when UNC Coach Roy Williams first met him in the campus gym, he wondered aloud why Ray wasn't on his team. "I'm too slow and I can't jump," Jason told Williams. "But I can be of assistance in other ways, coach."

Ray was to graduate in May with a 3.6 GPA, majoring in business administration with a minor in religion. He had a sales and marketing job lined up in nearby Raleigh, N.C.

Lucas: Tears For A Ram
Jason Ray, a senior who serves as Carolina's mascot, was critically injured Friday night.
March 24, 2007
By Adam Lucas

When you're in the mascot business, you're used to giving, not receiving.

Give a high five. Give a hug. Give a smile.

Calling it a "business" is a bit misleading, of course. That implies that it's somehow lucrative. It's not. Being a mascot falls in the same category as being a band member or cheerleader--you're part of the integral fabric of college sports, but no one notices you unless they have a complaint.

But at least a trumpet player or a tumbler can show his face. When you're a mascot, you learn to see the world through two small eye holes. You have to speak only with your gestures. It's hot in there--really, really hot.

Jason Ray travels with the tools of his trade in a black trash bag. That's how he walked into the North Carolina Children's Hospital last fall. He looked like just another tall guy in a Carolina windsuit. There were plenty of them around, because the football team was making its regular pre-home game Friday visit to the hospital. At that moment, tall guys in Carolina windsuits were the rule, not the exception.

But what was that big, bulky thing in his bag?

"Hey," he said. "Do you know if there's a place where I can change?"

Ten minutes later, Ray was gone. Rameses had appeared. He'd put on the costume he carried in the bag, including the enormous head, and proceeded to do exactly what Rameses always does--make people smile. Kids smiled. Parents smiled. Even a few football players smiled.

If you're a parent of a small child, you know that the only thing more entertaining than Tyler Hansbrough for them at a Carolina game is the sight of the ram. My kids are no different. They can be in the middle of a full-scale meltdown, and three simple words will snap them back to rapt attention:

"Where's the ram?"

He might be getting passed through the student section. Or maybe he's over there directing the band. Whatever he's doing, they love it. One of my favorite pictures of my daughter, McKay, is her sitting on the steps at a women's basketball game, shoulder-to-shoulder with Rameses. He looks gargantuan. She looks tiny. I like to think of both of them that way.

As a daddy, there is nothing better than making your kids laugh. So this is an enormous admission: Rameses can make them laugh even better than me. He runs out of the tunnel, he dances like the Blues Brothers, and sometimes he even sits down on press row and slums with the media. Look at the picture, but don't look at the giant ram. Look at the smiles of the faces on the people around him.

If you're a parent, this is the kind of day you dread. Rameses is going to be on the news frequently in the days to come as more news trickles out about the car accident in New Jersey that placed him in critical condition. His parents arrived last night and his brother flew in from Colorado.

What do you say when your kids ask you why Rameses is on TV? Mascots don't get hurt. Not like this. And neither should college kids.

You watched one Carolina team squeeze out a victory last night in the Sweet 16. They flew to New Jersey on a plane packed with other essential members of the traveling parties--associate athletic directors, band members, cheerleaders. And the ram.

Without a mascot--no, that's not it, they were without a team member--the cheerleaders were given the option of cheering at the game last night. They chose to do it, and to watch them you would have never known what they knew. In order to make sure all parties had been informed, Carolina didn't confirm the accident until the second half of the basketball game. Even before then, though, there was no outward sign of distress from the cheerleaders. They were as professional as amateurs (that's what we all are here, even the players) can be.

Until you ran into them immediately after the game in a Meadowlands hallway. It wasn't the looks on their faces that were most telling. It was the fact that almost every single one of them was on a cell phone. They were trying to get news, trying to relay news, trying to find out what they had missed during the three hours they were on the court.

Communication, of course, is one of the hardest parts of being a mascot. That fall day at the Children's Hospital, Ray--as Rameses--walked up to me. His big paw was grasping a folded piece of paper, and he was making a motion I didn't understand.

I eventually figured out he wanted me to hold the paper for him until the event was over. Once all the kids had been hugged and the last picture had been taken, Rameses finally disappeared...and Jason Ray reappeared.

"Thanks for holding that picture," he said. As he unfolded it, he proudly displayed a child's drawing of Rameses.

"I'd like to take this with me, if that's OK," he told the program coordinator. "One of the patients gave it to me."

Then he walked out, big bulky trash bag in one hand, picture in the other. It was the perfect portrait of someone who had spent most of the day giving...and unexpectedly received something, too.