Jacob Rainey, three years after amputation, clings to dream of being QB at Virginia

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Disclaimer: I used to live at the intersection of 12th Street and Wertland Street, on two separate occasions.

Jacob Rainey, three years after amputation, clings to dream of being QB at Virginia

By Mark Giannotto November 5

CHARLOTTESVILLE — 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.
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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.
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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)