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There is a very good feature on Matt Jones by Chris Solari in March 8th of the Argus Leader
Here is the link:
http://www.argusleader.com/sports/Sundayfeature.shtml
Fighting a battle against the unknown
Chris Solari
csolari@argusleader.com
published: 3/7/2004
SDSU sophomore dealing with Lyme disease
About 3,000 fans rose to their feet in unison, and Frost Arena burst into a din of screams and applause. The P.A. announcer's voice seemed to echo a little longer, a little louder in the rafters above the roar.
"Now entering the game for the Jackrabbits ... number 52, Matt Jones."
Tuesday was a welcome return for Jones. The 6-foot-6 sophomore played in a basketball game for just the second time since December, the first time in South Dakota State's home gym. And for 18 minutes in the North Central Conference tournament game against the University of North Dakota, he ran and jumped and whipped his lean, muscular body around just like anybody else.
When it ended, though, Jones sank back into his cruel reality. Though he played fewer minutes than during his first game four days earlier at Nebraska-Omaha, Jones felt even worse after Tuesday's playoff contest. Barely able to hold his lanky frame upright, the Alpena native looked like a man who had just endured some kind of masochistic boot camp.
Neither the 16-game layoff nor the physical nature of the sport zapped Jones of his energy, however. He has Lyme disease - or at least he has been deemed a carrier of the bacterial infection by a new test, which could be a major medical breakthrough in identifying the causes of many other diseases.
Basketball folks love to make overstated comparisons that games and possessions are battles. For the 21-year-old Jones, the real fight is with the unknown.
It began by simply trying to figure out why he felt so bad. Now, he has been diagnosed with a disease about which very little is known.
Jones is slowly recovering from the lack of concentration and fatigue associated with Lyme disease, which is sometimes called "the New Great Imitator." As the season winds down, the court has become his sanctuary from all the tests, doctors, and misgivings that have befallen him the last two years.
"The only thing I can't do is play basketball," he said. "That is the only thing that's inhibited."
A lost season
One year ago, Jones spent the entire season in the sluggish grips of what was diagnosed as mononucleosis.
It began fairly innocuously with a sore throat after finals week in 2002. Jones had won NCC Freshman of the Year for his play that winter, impressing the league with his pitbull demeanor and performance in the paint.
By the time he returned home that spring, Jones was run down and feeling the mental and physical effects of his first year at college. It took two trips to the doctor for the diagnosis of mono - an ominous sign of the plethora of medical visits that awaited him.
Facing the mono, Jones virtually went into shut-down mode to rest for his second year in Brookings. The Jackrabbits began conditioning shortly after he returned to campus in the fall of 2002. Immediately, something was wrong.
"It seemed like every day I went, I had less and less energy. About a week and a half into it, I just crashed. I could barely get out of bed," Jones said. "There were about three or four days that I didn't get off couch. That's how miserable I felt."
He would recuperate to the point of resuming practice, but his condition always worsened again.
Jones' days consisted of going to class when he could, then sleeping as much as 14 hours a day. He and coach Scott Nagy opted to use a redshirt year, wiping out any hopes of returning to the court until this season.
"He was so sick, and we knew he was sick," his father Doug said. "I guess my thought was that he had a redshirt year to use. We thought, 'Let's do this, and next year he'll get going again.'"
No one could have imagined that the following year would be even more trying.
Still run down
By February 2003, Matt Jones began to feel well enough to do some light practicing with the Jackrabbits. Over the summer, he recovered enough to find time for his other sporting passion - baseball, playing for Lake Norden's amateur team.
Even into the early stages of this school year, the physical drains of mono seemed to have vanished. Training for a return to the hardwood began.
"When workouts first started, I remember talking to him after working out for about a week," Doug Jones said. "He came home one weekend and I asked him how it was going, and he said something to the effect that he could do just as much as anybody else."
Here is the link:
http://www.argusleader.com/sports/Sundayfeature.shtml
Fighting a battle against the unknown
Chris Solari
csolari@argusleader.com
published: 3/7/2004
SDSU sophomore dealing with Lyme disease
About 3,000 fans rose to their feet in unison, and Frost Arena burst into a din of screams and applause. The P.A. announcer's voice seemed to echo a little longer, a little louder in the rafters above the roar.
"Now entering the game for the Jackrabbits ... number 52, Matt Jones."
Tuesday was a welcome return for Jones. The 6-foot-6 sophomore played in a basketball game for just the second time since December, the first time in South Dakota State's home gym. And for 18 minutes in the North Central Conference tournament game against the University of North Dakota, he ran and jumped and whipped his lean, muscular body around just like anybody else.
When it ended, though, Jones sank back into his cruel reality. Though he played fewer minutes than during his first game four days earlier at Nebraska-Omaha, Jones felt even worse after Tuesday's playoff contest. Barely able to hold his lanky frame upright, the Alpena native looked like a man who had just endured some kind of masochistic boot camp.
Neither the 16-game layoff nor the physical nature of the sport zapped Jones of his energy, however. He has Lyme disease - or at least he has been deemed a carrier of the bacterial infection by a new test, which could be a major medical breakthrough in identifying the causes of many other diseases.
Basketball folks love to make overstated comparisons that games and possessions are battles. For the 21-year-old Jones, the real fight is with the unknown.
It began by simply trying to figure out why he felt so bad. Now, he has been diagnosed with a disease about which very little is known.
Jones is slowly recovering from the lack of concentration and fatigue associated with Lyme disease, which is sometimes called "the New Great Imitator." As the season winds down, the court has become his sanctuary from all the tests, doctors, and misgivings that have befallen him the last two years.
"The only thing I can't do is play basketball," he said. "That is the only thing that's inhibited."
A lost season
One year ago, Jones spent the entire season in the sluggish grips of what was diagnosed as mononucleosis.
It began fairly innocuously with a sore throat after finals week in 2002. Jones had won NCC Freshman of the Year for his play that winter, impressing the league with his pitbull demeanor and performance in the paint.
By the time he returned home that spring, Jones was run down and feeling the mental and physical effects of his first year at college. It took two trips to the doctor for the diagnosis of mono - an ominous sign of the plethora of medical visits that awaited him.
Facing the mono, Jones virtually went into shut-down mode to rest for his second year in Brookings. The Jackrabbits began conditioning shortly after he returned to campus in the fall of 2002. Immediately, something was wrong.
"It seemed like every day I went, I had less and less energy. About a week and a half into it, I just crashed. I could barely get out of bed," Jones said. "There were about three or four days that I didn't get off couch. That's how miserable I felt."
He would recuperate to the point of resuming practice, but his condition always worsened again.
Jones' days consisted of going to class when he could, then sleeping as much as 14 hours a day. He and coach Scott Nagy opted to use a redshirt year, wiping out any hopes of returning to the court until this season.
"He was so sick, and we knew he was sick," his father Doug said. "I guess my thought was that he had a redshirt year to use. We thought, 'Let's do this, and next year he'll get going again.'"
No one could have imagined that the following year would be even more trying.
Still run down
By February 2003, Matt Jones began to feel well enough to do some light practicing with the Jackrabbits. Over the summer, he recovered enough to find time for his other sporting passion - baseball, playing for Lake Norden's amateur team.
Even into the early stages of this school year, the physical drains of mono seemed to have vanished. Training for a return to the hardwood began.
"When workouts first started, I remember talking to him after working out for about a week," Doug Jones said. "He came home one weekend and I asked him how it was going, and he said something to the effect that he could do just as much as anybody else."
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