Jay Fondren On A Mound of Faith

On a mound of faith
April 4, 2008

By Will Parchman
Sports editor
When Jay Fondren's wheelchair crests the Baylor Ballpark mound on Saturday to throw out the first pitch for Baylor's baseball game against the University of Kansas, not everyone will know his story, one that's equal parts tragic and triumphant.

But as a soldier with scars to show, he remembers all too well where he was a scant three years ago.

From his earliest memories, Fondren entertained thoughts about being a soldier. He'd been a talented soccer player in high school and showed proficiency for military life upon enlisting.

After beginning his service in March 2004, he was promoted to staff sergeant as a 24-year old in October of that year and appeared on a track for higher positions.

And then disaster struck and forever altered his course.


Bombs over Baghdad

While in a convoy in 2004 near the dangerous Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, a roadside bomb skidded below the undercarriage of Fondren's Humvee and detonated. It was the day before Thanksgiving. Fondren's lower body absorbed a direct hit.

As Fondren drifted in and out of consciousness, his squad-mates worked feverishly to shear off his 2-year-old wedding ring and cut through his riddled and bloodied battle fatigues.

"Hang in there!" the doctors shouted.

When a chaplain approached him at the aid station, ready to read him his last rites, he waved him off.

"Sir, I'm not going to die here," he said. "I told my wife before I left that I'd be back home."

Fondren lost both his legs in the blast, and severe shrapnel damage to his arms caused the amputation of his right thumb. But he was alive, and he'd return home like he promised.

When Fondren's wife Anne first heard the news, she cried for 10 minutes and "automatically knew" he'd lost something, a limb or perhaps something even deeper, something harder to quantify.

So when she first saw Fondren in Walter Reed Hospital in Washington D.C., the only thing she could think to do was pray.
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