Senior Feature: Mother And Son Worked Together To Make Sure Both Could Enjoy Joe Percival's 2nd Comeback

"My mom is not going to die."
Those were the words of Joe Percival, a high school senior whose life had been flipped upside down the moment he got pulled from
theology class. Those words did not come from an education in the medical field — though they would lead to it. Instead, they were fueled by the single strongest force within a young man who was about to prove stronger than even he could have expected.
They were fueled by faith.
And that faith was instilled by the woman whose last rites had already been read, a woman who will sit in Princeton Stadium this Saturday.

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Valerie Percival was a superwoman of sorts when she raised young Joe and Justin Percival. Their father was in their lives for two brief periods, though even then, it was the mother who made the Percival household run like clockwork.
"She was somebody who had us involved in everything," said Joe, the older of the two Percival boys. "If there was a club out there, she wanted to get us in it. If there was an activity, or training, she wanted us to try it. There were home-cooked meals all the time. She put her heart and soul into raising us all the time. She did it by herself. It was like having a
support team, a network, all in one person."
The Recycle Our Cans club? Joe tried it. The Peanut Butter & Jelly club (which made sandwiches for homeless people)? Yep, Joe was there.
"Things at my house were so regimented, that's how I learned time management," he said. "My mom set up a schedule, where we couldn't play video games on weekdays, we couldn't watch TV until 8:00 when our homework was done. Things were regulated so that we knew what we had to do, so when we hit high school, it was almost ingrained."
That ingrained mentality was critical on Dec. 10, 2013.
Three days earlier, Valerie Percival had surgery to remove a benign brain tumor that had grown large enough to potentially impinge on nerves. There wasn't much to the surgery, Joe thought, until his principal pulled him from class and told him that he needed to get to the hospital immediately. His mother had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics, and nobody thought she would make it through another sunrise.
Nobody but her oldest son.

As you watch #91 Saturday, know that he is on his second Princeton comeback. The story of the latter hardly measures up to the former, but it came during the football version of a nightmare season.
In the third quarter of a Week 7 matchup against Cornell, Percival slanted inside on a blitz when an offensive lineman caught his knee. His ankle twisted first, and then suffered under the weight of two falling players. The result was a serious ankle sprain, one that would cost him the remainder of his junior season.
As far as football injuries go, it was fairly standard. It's the fact that members of the defensive line suffered season enders in Weeks 1, 5, 6 and then earlier against Cornell as well that made it border on the absurd.
"It was so strange," Percival remembers of a season that started 5-1, and then fell victim to the rash of lineman injuries in an 0-4 finish. "It was game by game, one down, then two down, then another one. It was a ridiculous cycle. I think everything happens for a reason, and the way we come out right now, I feel more confident than ever. The guys who went down last season have more passion and drive to make things happen, and our focus is tremendous. We could do things we couldn't do last season. Mentally, physically, we're more prepared."
Percival healed, as did teammates like Mike Wagner, Jake Strain and Mark Fossati (he was a linebacker, but the injury gods got creative in Week 3). They're all back now, and joined by several teammates who grew leaps and bounds by the experience they gained playing late last season.
"This is tremendous," Percival said. "This is a tremendous opportunity. Having everybody in means that we get to go, and we trust each other. The level of trust on the D Line has improved so much, not just from previous years, but just from camp. We trust each other that we'll get the job done."
Percival has earned trust on the field in this second comeback, but he earned far more in his first one.

The doctors' prediction didn't come to fruition that December afternoon. Valerie Percival didn't die, but she did begin a life-changing rehabilitation process that impacted her full family. She was in a coma when Percival found out that he had been accepted to Princeton — a result that couldn't have happened if Valerie wasn't so regimented early in the application process.
She awoke in May of 2014 and was moved to a rehabilitation center, where she would stay for more than a year. While Valerie was under constant care and Justin was being watched by their former Peewee football coach, Joe felt he could begin his Princeton career without guilt.
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He made the travel squad of the season opener and quickly moved into the pass rush rotation. He ended the year with 12 tackles, and had sacks in multiple games. He was going to be important to the 2015 Princeton defense.
He was going to be more important to the woman who directed him to Princeton.
"One of the things she said is that, if you go to school, God will make it work for us," Joe remembers of the decision to take the 2015-16 academic year off and take care of his mother. "But the mountain of things that had to be done was so heavy, so high, and my little brother was too young. My mom was blind at that point, and she still had to recover. There was nobody else who could do it. I had to do it."
With a home falling apart, insurance matters pending and multiple hospitalizations still down the road, Joe accepted temporary control of the Percival household from Valerie.
"We knew he was struggling with this dilemma," head coach Bob Surace said. "He wanted to be a Princeton student, a Princeton
football player, but family has got to come first. You have to take care of your mom. You're not at Princeton without her."
The family made it through, and his mother had enough help that he could return in 2016 to play a role in that Ivy championship season. It took some time for him to get back up to speed, but he made an impact late, and then in a much greater way before his injury last year.
Percival, whose experiences have driven him to pursue a field in anesthesiology following his football career, saved his best for last, perhaps just to make sure his mom could see the best she always tried to bring out in her oldest son.

Valerie will never regain vision in her left eye, but her right eye can see Joe lead the team in prayer, his faith more than fortified by the events of the previous five years. She may not be able to read the numbers as clearly, but if she focuses on opposing quarterbacks, she's going to see her son (and his teammates) soon enough. A defense that simply didn't have enough bodies to bother opposing backfields late last season has more than made up for lost time. Princeton enters today's game ranked third nationally in scoring defense, eighth in rushing defense and 10th in total defense. The Tigers' next allowed second-half point will be the first of 2018.
In that way, perhaps Valerie has shaped the mindset of her son's entire group.
"It's like mom squared," he said. "She's even more energetic than she was before. For every opportunity she missed, she's making up for it 10 times over. It's almost like we get a second chance. I'm blessed to say that."
And he isn't about to waste a moment of the opportunity.
His mother would never allow it.

by Craig Sachson

For more on the Joe Percival story, check out this video feature run by GoPrincetonTigers.com last December.

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