Inside OU's Jacob Lacey's decision to medically retire from football: 'Happy he was alive'

NORMAN — David and Loraine Lacey were at a dinner party with friends in Puerto Rico when the call came.

It was a Saturday night in early February on the trip David had won at work to the Caribbean island. He immediately knew something was wrong when his son Jacob, who isn’t a talker and never called, especially at night on a weekend, lit up his phone.

Not again.

“What’s up?” David asked his son before holding his breath, already with an inkling what he was about to hear.

Loraine was having a good time and was shocked when David, who never leaves anywhere early, requested the couple go back to their hotel room. He waited to tell her what was happening until they shut the door and after he broke the news, Loraine shrieked and screamed profusely.

The pulmonary embolisms that almost killed Jacob twice last spring had returned and OU’s veteran defensive tackle — who had announced his intention to return to Norman for his sixth collegiate season nearly two months before — was in the emergency room. He struggled with blood clots throughout last summer, but improved enough to lead the Sooners’ defensive unit in snaps in 2023.

But when Jacob’s parents boarded a return flight to the United States en route to Oklahoma, they knew this time was different.

David chokes up remembering his son, who had been coughing up blood earlier that week, enduring uncomfortable pain in the hospital for the first time. A couple of weeks later head coach Brent Venables announced Jacob was medically retiring from football.

“He was there in the hospital for a few days and we knew then (playing football) was completely off,” David told The Oklahoman in a phone interview on Friday. “But still there was a 5% chance, like, is there any way? And I know better, but you still hope. Like, 'Lord, why would he go through all this again?' It was a lot.”

It happened suddenly when Jacob felt sharp pain.

“I started getting pain in my shoulder and left lung area,” Jacob said after OU’s practice Friday, in his new role as a volunteer coach. “Woke up, couldn't stand up, couldn’t breathe and drove myself to the hospital. … I just got that instinct like, 'Just go.' … Thankfully, nobody was in there. They got me in and I was praying and it was just shoulder pain, but within 24 hours I went from the weight room to the hospital.

“At first I didn't want to believe it, honestly. … There's like no way, I’m 23, there’s no possible way something like that could happen twice.”

Sooners defensive line coach Todd Bates is close with the Lacey family and couldn’t believe the diagnosis either. He pleaded with the doctors to see if there was any chance Lacey could make another comeback and strap up his pads for one final season.

No, they said. This time, there was no going back.

During the media’s first viewing session of spring practice on March 25, Lacey was alongside Bates working with the defensive tackles. While he’s retired from playing, he still gets up at 5 a.m. and shows up to every practice to keep a routine, stay involved in the program and help his brothers and the younger players improve.

While he’s loving being around the team, he often wishes he could jump into a drill and once again play the game he loves.

“It's different for sure,” Jacob said. “It was definitely a huge blow mentally at first but I think what I focused on was the little things. We had guys coming in I knew could be great and I wanted to help them just as much as I could, and I focused on that. I focused on waking up, knowing I could make other guys better.

“Because unfortunately, there's nothing I can change in my role so I want to make other people better while I can. So it's been going well, coaching is different for sure, but it's the next best thing.”

It’s been quite the year for the Laceys. One of the hardest things to come to terms with was Jacob felt as strong as he ever had earlier this year. His vitals were good and he was lifting every day to get ready for the season.

David struggles to talk about his son’s reality these days and says the family is in the “acceptance” stage and trying to move on. For the Laceys, they’re grateful more than anything.

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Jacob Lacey's parent ‘were just happy he was alive’

Jacob made an immediate impact after arriving at OU for spring practices last year after transferring from Notre Dame.

“We knew he was the man,” one coach said.

He dominated during spring ball, including an impressive showing during the Sooners’ annual spring game. Everything was going as planned until David’s phone rang in late spring while he was in New Orleans at his niece’s graduation. It was Jacob on the line — having trouble breathing.

David, who has a bachelor’s degree in nursing and has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over 20 years, advised Jacob to visit an urgent care facility. Later that night, Jacob ended up in the emergency room and was diagnosed with bilateral pulmonary embolisms.

“The doctors told him (his football playing days were) over,” David said. “The doctors told him he was fortunate to be alive. So we were just happy that he was alive.”

Jacob visited a hematologist and learned the cause and what he had to do to get better. Bates was by his side the entire time and didn’t take no for an answer when it came to talking about Jacob’s prospects of getting back on the field.

“I’m not gonna believe that,” Bates told David. “I just don’t believe that God would have him go through all of this to get here and not be able to play.”

David was conflicted. He’s been a youth pastor but also works in the medical field and knows science.

Jacob stayed on the medication he was prescribed for three to four months — while practicing in a no-contact jersey and working out daily. He’d do pushups in his room when he wasn’t supposed to be, out of breath, but determined to return to playing. Strength and conditioning coach Jerry Schmidt, with medical approval, worked with him on a plan to get back and he did just that.

“He was getting there, getting his breath,” David recalled. “And then when the doctor said he could play, I wouldn't believe that.”

Thinking his son was for sure not going to play in Oklahoma’s first game last season, David made the trip to Norman anyway to support the team. Not only did Jacob play against Arkansas State, he appeared in the first quarter. He ended up playing in all of OU’s 13 games, totaling 17 tackles, including two for loss, a sack and a fumble recovery.

Jacob left his mark on Sooners football forever on Oct. 7 when he sacked Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers in what Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian later noted was the play that shifted his team’s mindset. Jacob also won his one-on-one battle at the goal line, a key moment in OU's goal-line stand to defeat its arch rival.

“As a dad, I play it cool all the time when he gets a sack or whatever," David said. "That’s what you’re supposed to do. But the goal-line stand, I was like, 'That's awesome.' … That was a game changer right there."

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‘It was everything for him’

While Jacob has spent the spring on the sidelines, learning from Bates and coaching up younger players, coaching isn't something he’s looking to do long-term. He’ll finish his master's degree in May. He’s already had an internship with Chick-fil-A and has multiple job possibilities for when he graduates.

“The lesson here, though, and I’d tell anybody this,” David said, “(is) that's why you get a great education. That's why you get an education, football is coming to an end for everybody.”

It meant the world to him that Jacob had battled back from a life-threatening diagnosis to play every game. After the season, he had to decide whether to give up the sport and focus on finishing his degree or to take one last dance with his teammates.

Jacob grappled with it for a couple of weeks before announcing he’d return. The chance to play again with Da’Jon Terry, together leading the defensive line into the SEC was too good to pass up.

They’ll never get the chance. While Jacob will always ponder what could’ve been, he’ll never forget the year he spent in crimson and cream.

“(Last season meant) everything,” David said. “I mean, that's what it was all about. The culmination of the four years and getting to play after the embolisms but just he thought his football career was over. … To see where he was by the end of the year, it was everything for him. That was the most joy I've seen him have in college football.

“The satisfaction and joy and pure understanding of where he was in that moment of the year, knowing what he's been through was everything.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Inside OU's Jacob Lacey's decision to medically retire from football