Adarios Jones: The Fight To Return To The Mat

Adarios Jones: The Fight To Return To The Mat

Imagine coming off an amazing championship run then having the rug pulled out from under you in an instant. It’s like being on top of the world then searchi

Feb 12, 2016 by Ryan Holmes
Adarios Jones: The Fight To Return To The Mat
Imagine coming off an amazing championship run then having the rug pulled out from under you in an instant. It’s like being on top of the world then searching for answers that don’t seem to exist.

Adarios Jones accomplished just about every goal he set out for as a senior in high school. Then it all came to a halt pretty fast.
It was right after Christmas when they [gave me a timestamp],” Jones said. “At first, they told me I had 11 months to live, then it got dialed back to nine [months] once they saw how encased the tissue around my esophagus was.
He was as an Illinois state champion, then went on to win a Fargo title before winning his first College open tournament. He was riding high. Then he got diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma or “a rare malignant tumor involving striated muscle tissue.”

“I’m coming off a really good senior year winning state and getting a Fargo national title. I’m really getting my name on the map,” Jones said. “Then I’m up at UNI and everything is going really, really good. I had just won my first open. Then all the sudden I know something is not right. I’m practicing one day and I start coughing up a little bit of blood and having what seemed like a heart attack. It was hard to breathe and my chest hurt.”



As a wrestler, you just want to push through whatever is bothering you. But this was too much to handle, even for one of the toughest heavyweights in the country. This wasn’t just something that he could shrug off and get back on the mat.

“All throughout high school I dealt with the same thing,” said Jones. “I’d cough up blood and go into these panic attacks, but no doctor could diagnose what it was. So when it happened at UNI I couldn’t wrestle anymore and they admitted me into the hospital to do a little more testing. While I was there they found the cancer that was around my lungs.”

At this point, anyone would start to panic and look for answers. However, Jones just kept to himself.
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“After I found out, it was about a few days before Christmas so I came home, but I didn’t want to tell my family. So I waited and two days after Christmas I ended up breaking the news,” he said.

With his diagnosis now out in the open, Jones withdrew from UNI and moved back home to be closer to family. And as expected, he went through all the different stages of a traumatic experience. But the one that hit the hardest was anger. Even though he was completely devastated by everything that had been going on, it was his anger towards it all that would make a pretty significant impact.

“I was so ready to hop on that UNI Panther Train and do great things up there, but that changed. So I came home and that’s when the battle started,” Jones admitted. “At first, I kind of laughed it off. I doubted it. Then a month later I’m sitting in my room and I’m getting the itch to wrestle really bad, but I can’t, so I go on a walk. While I’m walking I get this urge and I break out into a jog and about 40 minutes later I ended passing out; or at least that’s what I’m told. I jog along the Mississippi River, so that’s where someone found me and they took me to the hospital, which is where I woke up.”

After waking up in the hospital from pushing his body harder than it could go, he began to think about wrestling and how much he missed being on the mat.
I just kept thinking to myself that there was no way that I could let wrestling out of my life,” he said. “It was the only thing that I was focused on and I knew that the only way that I could ever wrestle again was if I beat this. So I made the switch right there and knew that if I wanted to ever be on the mat again that I had to at least try. That’s when my fight really began. Once I took it on I knew it was going to be a ride or die thing and I would have to commit myself to it.
Although it seems like his tough wrestling mentality and no quit attitude was fueling him day in and day out, none of it was easy. He withstood so much
throughout the entire process every single day. He knew that he had to put his best efforts towards beating cancer.

“It was not easy,” Jones said. “They said that it was pressing up against some of my vital organs and that in order for me to wrestle again it was going to have to clear up because that was the cause of me passing out and everything. I wasn’t ready, but I put my best foot forward and it all snow balled from there.”

Although he was the only one going to the treatments and putting all of his efforts towards getting better, he had the help of his mom and the Illinois wrestling community; specifically, his coach Todd Thompson at Moline and the Oak Park and River Forest wrestling team.

“My mom was a huge supporter,” he said. “She was balling when I first told her, but I let her know I’d be fine. And actually for the first five or six months I didn’t tell her how long they gave me, I was just trying to be strong for her. Another person that was a really big help was my coach. He would text me everyday and check up on me and my community was great. Without the OPRF wrestling team I wouldn’t be breathing today. Guys like LEIII [Larry Early III], Isaiah [White] and Kamal [Bey] were super supportive. I try to make it down to hang out with Gabe Townsell, but it’s tough. We all still keep in touch though.”

As time passed, Jones kept getting better and stronger then in September he got the great news that he was cancer free.
It was September 24, 2015 that I found out it was in remission,” Jones said. “And they were advising me not to go back to wrestling. But they knew they wouldn’t be able to stop me so just take it slow. I didn’t get the go-ahead until about five months ago to fully wrestler. But as soon as they told me I was in remission I went back to the mat and it was incredible. It was a weird feeling at first it was almost as if I did the impossible.

Now that he is fully cleared with the cancer in remission, he is going to the local community college and transferring to Augustana in the fall where he will wrestle for the Vikings. Right now he is training with some friends until he can join his new team in the fall. But most of all he is looking forward to the Freestyle and Greco season.

“My favorite style is definitely Greco, so I’m really looking forward to getting back to that,” he said. “Watching the World Championships and seeing Jordan Burroughs and Kyle Snyder made me want to get back to wrestling the most. I really like watching Snyder a lot. But my biggest inspiration has to be Tervel Dlagnev. Seeing him going from a Division II school to being one of the best heavyweights in the world gives me a lot of hope.”

As he looks back on everything he went through he can’t help but to be proud of himself. But he’s anxious to see what the future holds.
It was a testament to how strong a person’s will can be,” said Jones. “If you want to do something you’re doing to do it if you get your mind right. That entire time I’m going through everything I’m thinking that this is all just another match. There was 30 seconds on the clock, I’m down by one and I was not going to give up. I kept thinking to myself ‘you’ve got to do this’ and seeing all these people surround me helped so much. I knew I was going to make a statement. But I have to thank my mom, coach Thompson, the OPRF wrestling team and all of you guys at Flo for the love and support throughout everything. I really appreciate it.