Lacey Football Player Battled Potentially Fatal Illness

At first it was nothing more than a zit on his chin, something teenagers are known to have a passing familiarity with.

Lacey senior linebacker/tight end Jordan Powell thought nothing of it, practicing on Thursday, Sept. 8 with a Band-Aid on his chin with some Neosporin on it. A day later, that spot started to feel hard as he got ready to partake in Lacey's scrimmage against Matawan that Friday night.

"Halfway through the scrimmage, it got huge, and it hurt whenever I hit it,'' Powell said.

Powell went home and put a hot compress on it, but awoke at 4:30 a.m. on Saturday with a pounding headache and a swollen throat. He finally broke down and told his mother that he should go to Southern Ocean Medical Center to get checked out. When he arrived, he was diagnosed with a fever of 102.6 degrees.

It turned out that Powell had methicillin-resistant Staphlococcus aureus, better known as MRSA, a drug-resistant bacterium that can be potentially fatal. Every six hours, another round of powerful antibiotics were administered intravenously to Powell.

A study by the Texas State Department of Health found that football players are infected by MRSA at a rate that is 16 times higher than the national average, often contracting it in locker rooms or when bacteria gets into an open abrasion. While many players contract it on their legs and arms, the fact that it was on Powell's chin was even more dangerous. An inch-long incision had to be made in his throat to drain the bacteria.

"I didn't realize how bad it was, and the doctors told me that if I hadn't said anything about it for another two days, I could've been dead,'' Powell said. "The infection could've gone right to my brain and killed me.''

As a result of that scary incident, Powell had to sit out Lacey's 21-14 loss to Wall in the season opener. The star linebacker/tight end, one of the Shore's top returning two-way players, was standing on the sidelines with a large Band-Aid under his chin and watching as the young Lions, who only returned four players with significant experience from last year's 12-0 team, battled a Wall team ranked No. 3 in the All Shore Media Top 10. Wall's running game ended up producing 160 yards rushing, including 127 by senior tailback Jim Guiliano, with Powell out of the lineup for a team that did not allow a 100-yard rusher all of last season.

The good news is that he made his return on Sept. 17, but the bad news is that the Lions were upset, 16-7, by Brick in a Class B South game.

"Standing there and having to watch us lose was the worst,'' he said. "I can't wait to get out there and hit some people.''

Powell also will have to make up for lost time. He has received interest from programs like Rutgers and Boston College as well as a host of Division I-AA programs, but has no scholarship offers as of this time. Most of the schools want to see senior film from his first three or four games, so missing a full game did not exactly come at the right time.