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Photo courtesy of Jack Talley
From left to right: Wes Talley, Alex Ann Talley, Holly Talley, Max Talley, Jack Talley, Sofia Willey and Luke Talley, after Jack completed “Plebe Summer.”
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Photo courtesy of Jack Talley
Jack Talley standing in front of a yard sign at his home, recognizing him as a manager.
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Photo courtesy of Jack Talley
Jack Talley’s freshman football picture, before he was forced to quit.
By MJ NEWSOM
It was just another typical spring Sunday evening in Vestavia Hills. For high school freshman Jack Talley, his biggest worry might have been what test was coming up that week.
The fragility of life certainly wasn’t on his mind. Until, suddenly, it became very apparent.
Talley and his older brother, Luke, were on their way home from Shades Mountain Baptist Church that evening in March 2019 when a drunk driver hit them head-on.
“I was blessed to walk away from that,” said Jack Talley. But for a while, the crash seemed to threaten his lifelong dreams.
From an early age, Talley had a passion for football, first bonding with his father over college football and later joining the Vestavia Hills High School team.
His parents also raised him to respect the military, and Talley sought to be the first in his family to serve.
Talley said his dream of military service started before he was even in high school, when he heard a specific question at a Shades Mountain Baptist retreat: What would you do for the glory of God if you knew you could not fail?
He became the president of the aviation club at Vestavia Hills High School, setting his sights on his future career.
At first, recovering from the car crash seemed like it would be simple. It happened about a month before spring practice and Talley was left with a concussion, but he expected to be back in the game by the fall.
Luke’s concussion lasted only a few weeks, but Jack was left with many side effects: daily headaches, slower thought process, susceptibility to noise.
“I remember seeing Jack upstairs, trying to do his homework with tears flowing down his face because it was so hard,” said his father, Wes.
As Jack Talley entered his sophomore year, he was faced with a choice: one love or the other.
“One doctor told me I could never play football again if I wanted to go to the military,” Talley said.
He made the decision to hang up the cleats. It wasn’t easy.
“When he first lost football, he like, he lost a part of himself,” said Sofia Willey, who was Talley’s girlfriend since their freshman year of high school and is now a sophomore at Clemson University.
After not playing in the fall of his sophomore year, Talley told then-head coach Buddy Anderson and then-defensive coordinator Chad Merrill that he had to step away. They didn’t take no for an answer.
“They asked me to stay on as a manager,” Talley said. “I laughed at first, and then realized how disrespectful it was when I realized they were serious.”
Merrill felt Talley made the team better, even if he wasn’t wearing a helmet, and he didn’t want the football program to lose him.
“Jack was a guy I was willing to fight for,” Merrill said. “I didn’t want to take his no and walk away.”
Talley started as a manager that spring, but not without discomfort.
“There were definitely some guys that doubted, and initially I had a little bit of doubt,” said Hoke Smith, a high school teammate of Talley’s. “Once we understood the severity of the injury, we were all his biggest supporters.”
The summer before his junior year, Talley found his football passion once again, but through a new lens.
“My love for the sport grew exponentially, while I learned more and more about it,” he said.
Talley served as the team manager for his remaining two years at Vestavia Hills. Both Smith and Merrill recall how hard he worked.
“If practice was at 5:30 a.m., Jack was there no later than 4:45,” Smith said. “Everyone could count on him to be prepared.”
There were late nights, too, along with the early mornings.
“When coaches needed to go home and be with their families after a game, Jack stayed to get everything put away,” Merrill said. “He was the kind of guy that coach Anderson gave a set of keys to lock the place up. He was so trustworthy.”
Wes Talley recalled Jack’s senior football banquet, where he won the award for the person who demonstrated the hardest work. The whole team gave him a standing ovation.
Despite his hard work, another challenge loomed: getting into a military academy.
“I felt left out on a lot because of how certain things impacted my concussion,” Jack Talley said. “It was that severe.”
The side effects from certain medicines affected his blood pressure, vision and weight. Before his senior year, he was 40 pounds overweight.
“My weight was a no-go for military academies,” he said.
Come December of his senior year, Talley was medically cleared. It was a huge relief, he said. All the same, he decided to apply for ROTC at many universities along with his applications to the military academies.
Talley was initially turned down by nearly every academy. His plan was to enroll at Auburn University, and prove himself in the Naval ROTC, then reapply.
But that changed one day in March 2022. Talley received a call from Sen. Tommy Tuberville, congratulating him on an appointment to the Air Force Academy.
It was a no brainer.
“This was God’s sign that I’m supposed to go to Air Force,” Talley said.
Then, his hopes were dashed again.
Talley received a call from Air Force officials nine days later, telling him they were rescinding his appointment. He had received admission, yes. But his medical waivers had not been cleared.
At that point, it was back to Auburn. Talley was getting used to saying “War Eagle” and preparing for graduation when things changed yet again.
The day before graduation, Navy gave him a call. He had cleared all his medical waivers and gotten a spot off the waitlist. The dean of admissions delivered the news personally.
“It was,” said Talley, now in his second year at the Naval Academy, “God’s hand in everything.”
MJ Newsom is a 2021 Vestavia Hills High School graduate and is currently studying journalism at the University of Southern California. This piece was produced as part of his sports reporting class and submitted to the Vestavia Voice.
