Monticello honors coach's son
May 2—MONTICELLO — Wade Jones will celebrate his 12th birthday in two weeks.
So May is always a special month for the Monticello native and his family.
But the first week in May means something a little bit more because of the condition he's lived with nearly all his life. Jones, the son of veteran Monticello baseball coach Chris Jones, was diagnosed with Cri-du-chat syndrome when he was just 4 months old.
Cri-du-chat, also known as 5p-, is a chromosomal condition that results when a piece of chromosome 5 is missing. Children with 5p- are born with low muscle tone, making simple tasks — like holding their head up and sitting up — difficult. The chance of having a child with 5p- is 1 in 50,000.
The first week of May is Cri-du-chat awareness week, and the Monticello community has rallied behind one of its own. Wade, a sixth-grader at Monticello Middle School, threw out the first pitch of Thursday afternoon's baseball game between the host Sages. Monticello is the No. 1 ranked team in The News-Gazette's poll for the last three weeks and carried a 25-2 record into Thursday's game.
Players on the Monticello baseball team wore two different colored socks on Thursday to represent the deletion of a portion of the p arm in the fifth chromosome. Monticello softball players also did the same during its home game with Rantoul at the Wilkey Complex behind the high school on Thursday afternoon.
The Monticello student body had also raised $1,700 to support the 5p- Society, according to Monticello athletic director Dan Sheehan, before Thursday's games. The Monticello Pep Club sold shirts, did a bake sale and also held a rock, paper, scissors tournament to raise funds.
A tailgate was hosted before Thursday's games and the Monticello softball team was donating its concession stand sales to the cause. All money raised helps out the 5p- Society host a conference held every year for families across the country to learn about new therapies, strategies and research about 5-p.
"We were determined that Wade was going to be one of the 5p- kids that would be able to walk," Chris Jones said. "It took three-plus years and hours of physical therapy from the amazing Betsy 'Gibson' Williams, but Wade is walking. Not only is he walking, he is running — fast. We have come so far since 2014."
