Vanderbilt football has a cancer beater and a life ‘forever changed' in Marlon Jones

New York Times

16 hours ago

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — College football programs have their dates, some more than others, precious few for Vanderbilt. But Oct. 5, 2024, is an all-timer. That's a date the Vanderbilt participants, fans and families will always hold close.
One of those families shared emotions beyond the obvious thrill and awe of the Commodores beating Alabama 40-35 at Vanderbilt Stadium. It was a feelings bouillabaisse for the Joneses of Puyallup, Wash. The things Clark Lea told Marlon Jones and his parents, things that convinced the Eastern Washington graduate transfer cornerback to choose Vanderbilt over Colorado, Washington State and others, were materializing on that field.
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It didn't hurt that the coach on the Alabama sideline, Kalen DeBoer, was part of one of their least favorite recruiting experiences while he was still coaching Washington — about 40 miles north of their home — in 2023. Beating the dominant program in college football and DeBoer at the same time? Seeing work pay off in stunning results? Planting a spotlight on the genius of quarterback Diego Pavia and commandeering American sports headlines? What a day.
'I had never seen my mom that happy,' Jones said. 'Just screaming at the TV.'
But that's what hurt: Jones was next to his mom to see it.
He was in the living room at home with his parents, Marlon Sr. and Amena. He was tired, weakened from months of chemotherapy treatments to attack the stage 3 Hodgkin's lymphoma that doctors diagnosed the day before he was supposed to move to Vanderbilt. Of course, he was happy for Lea, GM Barton Simmons, the defensive coaches, players such as Miles Capers and Marlen Sewell, whom he had befriended on visits to Nashville.
But he was supposed to start at cornerback for that team and be part of that experience.
'You have all this momentum, you're heading to a new place, you're hearing this vision for you and the team, so it's obviously a little hard to have that stripped away by something you can't control,' Jones said. 'But it was great to see coach Lea's vision come to fruition — I mean, we beat Bama, we beat Virginia Tech, we proved a lot of people wrong.'
Jones said this last week at Vanderbilt, dripping with sweat after another practice, another day of trying to establish a role for himself on a team that faces the unfamiliar charge of proving people right. With Pavia back and the talent level rising on the roster after a 7-6 breakthrough, expectations and anticipation greet Lea's fifth season.
Jones, who turns 24 on Tuesday, has one season of college football left. It's taking place one year later than planned and, as things go in college football these days, the depth chart has been jumbled. He's tougher in some ways — staring down cancer, beating it and going into full remission will do that for someone — but the chemo also took its toll.
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Jones had a long way back physically and, though he joined the program in January, he wasn't cleared for full activity until summer workouts. Also, toughness and confidence aren't the same thing.
'I know the winter and spring were hard for him,' Lea said of the 6-foot-1, 190-pound Jones. 'But whatever his limitations are, this guy, he works around them. He works through them. He spends so much time meeting extra, meeting with coaches, with other players, asking questions, focusing on technique. He's obsessed with it. That has put him in position quickly to be a factor for us.'
Jones waited to hop into the transfer portal until December 2023, after he had played in parts of five seasons at Eastern Washington — one of them a Covid-19-shortened spring stint — and earned a business management degree. The three-star recruit had offers from Utah State and others coming out of Tacoma Curtis High, but he chose coach Aaron Best's FCS program and improved gradually.
Coming off an All-Big Sky season in 2023, featuring touchdowns on all three interceptions, Jones had an opportunity to level up, put a few bucks in his pocket and see what might be next. More football? Great. Nursing school? Football forced him to scrap his medical interests as an undergraduate, but he still had those interests.
The hometown Washington Huskies reached out, but that ended quickly, weeks before DeBoer bolted for Alabama. Jones did not feel prioritized. Colorado, Houston, Purdue, Washington State and Oregon State approached with more purpose.
None of them did so with the intensity or specificity of Clark Lea's Vanderbilt program. Lea and his coaches had a plan based on analysis that could only be gleaned from deep film study to present Jones and his parents. It wasn't close.
'You never really know how things are going to sort out,' Lea said of the recruitment. 'But we weren't adding him to be a backup.'
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More memorable dates followed. Jones committed on Dec. 21, 2023. Two months later, he noticed a lump about the size of a gumball on the side of his neck. He had no symptoms and a history of swollen lymph nodes, so doctors weren't concerned at first. But it never went away. The family got a second and third opinion, finally to the point of an ultrasound and biopsy.
On April 19, 2024, Jones and Amena were scheduled to fly from Seattle to Nashville to get him settled into his new home. On April 18, 2024, Marlon Sr. began driving his son's car the roughly 2,400 miles to Vanderbilt so he would have it on campus. Before that day ended, he got a call and turned the car around, distraught. His 22-year-old, perfectly fit, Division I athlete son had cancer.
'Your world is immediately flipped upside down,' he said.
Doctors at Multicare Cancer Center of Puyallup were confident, telling the family that this sort of cancer had a strong remission rate, especially for the young and healthy. But cancer isn't sports. Stats only mean so much. It comes with mental anguish, which in turn can make it more difficult to beat.
'It's important for me to say that as a family we've always had a faith and that's what we tried to stand on,' Amena said. 'But for me, I have to be honest, my faith was shaken for a minute there. You hear 'cancer' and you don't think good thoughts, right? You imagine losing a lot of weight, the sickness from treatments and then what side effects are going to come out of it? It's your child, it's happening right in front of you and there's nothing you can do about it. One day you're OK and the next day you're devastated, but you can't show him that.
'And then as it turns out, he has the most strength out of anybody. He stayed consistently confident through the whole thing. Which taught me a lesson.'
On that point, Jones said: 'Of course, it crushed me. I was sad. I was scared. But at no point did I think I was going to lose my life. That's a credit to my faith, I just believed and trusted in God's plan. I knew He didn't cause me to have this, but He was going to use it for good. The only thing I was really worried about was football.'
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To that point, April 19, 2024, was a big one even without the flight to Nashville. It was the day Lea called to offer his support and reassure Jones that Vanderbilt was undeterred. As unthinkable as it may be to consider a program dropping an athlete in this kind of duress — 'almost a tough statement on where we are in society,' Lea said — those words mattered. A lot.
'He tells Marlon, 'Nothing is changing, your deal's not changing, we'll see you next season,' and I'm telling you, there was a relief that overcame Marlon's body during that call,' Amena said.
'I just wanted him to know he doesn't need to worry about six months from (now), we'll take care of that, he just needs to focus on today,' Lea said. 'One at a time. He has an incredible family and just knowing the anxiety they must have felt … the sense of relief when we had that conversation was something I'll always remember.'
As anyone who has dealt with cancer can attest, mindset can be a critical factor and work either way in the fight. Jones had hard stretches in the months ahead, but he knew the reward was the opportunity simply to suit up against some of the best teams and players in college football, in some of its hallowed atmospheres. Few can speak of that experience.
He stayed in touch Vanderbilt players and coaches during that time. He went to Bible college. He did what he could to stave off the damage chemotherapy does to a body. The texts and calls were flying, in particular, after the win over Alabama. Now Jones is in position to compete at a high level again, and he's taking classes that can set him up for nursing school if that's his choice after football.
'This program will have forever changed my life,' Jones said. 'It's a tight-knit team, guys love each other, guys are genuine with each other. I've seen guys get emotional around each other and be vulnerable, which is important to really grow. Coach Lea has been big on breaking down impurities that we have amongst ourselves, breaking down bad habits and really forming together as one. He's done a great job of instilling that, and we're applying it to our lives.'
Jones' life already has produced indelible moments and a story Lea thinks can strengthen the Vanderbilt locker room. He also expects Jones to help on the field. The journey begins Aug. 30 against Charleston Southern. Circle Sept. 6 (at Virginia Tech), Oct. 4 (at Alabama), Nov. 1 (at Texas) and Nov. 29 (at Tennessee), opportunities for more memories.
None of them should touch Oct. 15, 2024, though. Ten days after watching his Commodores beat the Crimson Tide, Jones rang the bell at the hospital, signifying the end of his treatments. And he witnessed a new standard in mother happiness.
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