Soles “Backbone” of UVa-Wise Men’s Basketball

November 26, 2007

Wise, Va. -- The average athlete has an extremely tough time playing sports after back surgery. The University of Virginia’s College at Wise’s Jarred Soles is not your average athlete. You see Soles has endured not one but three major back surgeries to become the ‘backbone’ of the men’s basketball team.

The senior guard will wrap-up an unlikely stellar hoops career for the 2007-08 NAIA Division II Highland Cavaliers. Soles went through three comeback attempts before successfully being able to launch his collegiate basketball career.

“I worked so hard and was finally able to play (after all of the comeback tries), tells Soles. “There was not a better feeling.”

The Yorktown, Va. native has since done nothing but play at a high level for now his fourth season. The All-Appalachian Athletic Conference second team player entered the season 14 th on the school’s all-time scoring list and moved up to 11 th place (1,318 points) in the team’s first nine contests.

“I admire the young man’s determination to play at this level and become an all-conference second team player especially with some of the guards in our league,” said 12 th-year UVa-Wise head coach Lee Clark. “He has a real shot at first team in the league this season.”

Clark’s Cavs have high hopes for this year with Soles and his fellow seniors, Joey Blackwell, Seth Gibson, Daniel Adams and Justin Sorensen. The five veterans have helped UVa-Wise start strong by posting a 4-5 record in the early season, 4-2 against non-NCAA Division I opponents. Soles had the top scoring honors in four of those contests and has posted a team-best 13.6 points per game and made 17 three-pointers.

The Highland Cavaliers return to action this Friday evening when they play at Bryan College for a 7:30 p.m. tip-off to start the 2007-08 AAC schedule.

“He (Jarred) leads by example and I look for him to have a big year along with all the seniors on the team,” Clark added.

Soles has no personal goals for himself in his final campaign in a Highland Cavalier uniform.

“I have no personal goals this year,” tells the guard. “It’s not even about wins and losses for me but to just be one of the best leaders I can possibly be.”

This leading Highland Cavalier has come a long way to becoming the player, student and person he is now. In fact, what kept Jarred from going to other “greener pastures” to play basketball, his back surgeries, actually helped lead him to Wise.

Younger and more athletic, Soles was a different type of basketball player in high school. He was much more of a driver/slasher type player than the top notch shooter seen on the court in Fred B. Greear Gym today. The backcourt player guided York High to the 2002 Bay Rivers District championship and helped the Falcons fight into the regional playoffs before seeing the season end. Individually, he earned both all-district first team and all-region second team acclaim while heading straight to his first back surgery.

Following the March 2002 surgery shortly after his final high school game ended, the talented hoops player saw his collegiate playing options dwindle as the scholarship offers came with strings attached.

“All of the other schools wanted me to get healthy first before they would stick with me or make me try out and prove I was healthy,” tells Soles. “All through the process UVa-Wise stuck with me and continued to offer me a scholarship. Coach Clark never withdrew the offer. The coaching staff had more confidence in me than everyone else and that meant a lot to me.”

“I wanted to give the kid a chance. We had a connection with Jarred since his cousin Bobby Hedrick (who was part of the Cavs’ 2003 AAC championship team and the eighth all-time scorer with 1,414 points),” recalled Clark. “I had serious doubts when seeing him in the apparatus he was wearing after the surgery if he would play. I thought that maybe he should just be concerned with being healthy enough to eventually be able to play out in the backyard with his kids someday.”

“His determination is unbelievable.”

At that point, Clark would have no idea just how unbelievably determined this future Cavs roster stalwart would be.

Soles stepped onto the Wise campus for the first time in the 2002 fall semester. Unfortunately, his repaired back never healed like it was suppose to do and prevented him from lacing up his high tops. Jarred was healthy enough to only lift weights but a pinched sciatic nerve prevented him from sleeping.

At the completion of the semester, the wing player returned home to have the same back surgery for a second time in January of 2003. The doctors cut off more of the same L5S1 disc. He would spend his second summer in a row trying to get healthy over another three month rehab stint.

An optimistic and high spirited Jarred returned to Wise in the fall with hopes that he could finally be able to start playing collegiate basketball.

“On my birthday (September 27 th) and first day of practice, I was hurt again,” painfully recalled the senior. “I tried to tough it out for a while and made it through a couple weeks of practice. My back regressed to where I was barely walking again and had to go back home yet again after just a month.”

For a third time, Soles would go under the knife but for a more major procedure than the previous two operations. This time the surgeons took bone from his left hip to fuse into his back.

Due to the level of the surgery, the rehabilitation was unlike any he had faced.

“The rehab was at least six months. I used a walker at first and progressed from two minutes of walking four times a day up to 45 minutes at a time.”

The toll of the whole process wasn’t just physical but greatly mental on Jarred as the calendar went to May of 2004.

“After the third surgery I was thinking maybe basketball may not be for me. When I hit rock bottom I doubted whether I would ever get healthy again,” remembers Soles.

“If I never played again I felt I would be a failure but that is when my faith took over and where I totally leaned on the Lord. You have to believe in what you can’t see and I felt His calling to try one more time.”

The UVa-Wise men’s basketball program and Coach Clark could not be happier for the calling of one last try.

“Most Americans would just be content on drawing a check after going through the surgeries but not Jarred,” points out Clark. “His perseverance is just incredible.”

Soles made his final comeback attempt in the fall of 2004. He made it through the preseason and all the practices just fine. The 6-3, 190-pound guard went on to score 239 points in 23 games, 10.4 point per contest, to receive selection on the AAC All-Freshman team.

“Even though the team (3-28) was not good that year it was still one of the most rewarding times of my life. I worked so hard and finally was able to play,” said Soles. “Just making the all-freshman team was like the icing on the cake for me that year. It was probably the only year where individual accomplishments meant something to me.”

His on-court growth continued the next year. Jarred increased his scoring by almost five points to 15.0 ppg in helping the Cavs jump to 15 victories and a surprising run into the AAC tournament semifinals.

“It was a great year as the team achieved as much as it possibly could. The team really improved more and more as the year went on,” added the veteran player.

As much pride it gave him for the team’s 2005-06 progress, the true team leader took no solace in his accolades a year ago. Soles received All-AAC second team status as he led UVa-Wise in six offensive categories including scoring (17.3 ppg) and three-pointers (74) along with dropping a career-high 31 points against King College.

The 2007-08 season and final chapter of the Soles journey looks to be off to another strong start. However, his past back troubles will never be behind him due to constant maintenance and hard work.

“I will never be 100-percent healthy with my back again. I just have to be smart about it and take a day off here and there but I will never miss a game due to my back,” proclaims Soles.

The rock of the Cavs’ foundation has been studying how he can best fulfill his one and only goal of being the best leader the program has seen for this season.

“I have been going through and studying the Old Testament leaders of David and Nehemiah. I want my teammates to look at me how those two leaders were looked upon,” tells the senior. “It is important for me to be this type of leader as some things you just get put on your heart.”

“I felt we underachieved last year as a team. I scored my points but if it didn’t bring the team along what did you really do.”

Like many senior college athletes, the self-proclaimed deep thinker wants to leave much more than a playing legacy on the UVa-Wise team.

“I was supposed to come here for a reason. The experience has made me the person I am now,” Jarred explains. “I would definitely send anyone here (to UVa-Wise). I think now ‘How can I reward UVa-Wise for staying and standing with me’ as that is what my basketball career has been about.”

Soles has also joined forces with teammate Joey Blackwell and Highland Cavalier football players Ben Robertson and Ryan Vanover to name a few student-athletes who have started a new campus group, ‘Teammates 4 Life,’ to further leave his mark. Along the lines of Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Teammates 4 Life was started so the students and athletes alike can give their talents to glorify the Lord. The last of the two events the group has held this fall semester was when the New England Patriots played the Indianapolis Colts. At the event, prizes were given away and a speaker shared with everyone in attendance at halftime of the game.

The fourth-year player, who carries a solid 3.364 GPA in health and physical education, aims to return to the Yorktown area upon graduation in the spring. He has the goals of being a high school teacher as well as coaching football and basketball.

“Jarred is a leader on and off the court,” says Clark matter of factly. “He will graduate, be a fine young man and a good example to be around young people and a fine person to represent our program.”

Soles strives to continue using his on and off court experience and leadership to help put UVa-Wise back on the winning track this year.

“I feel through my basketball career and all the back surgeries I have had that I have seen the best of the best and the worst of the worst. All I have went through has all been for a reason to get me to where I can be a leader to a whole college program,” exclaims Soles.

The exact type of leader you want as the ‘backbone’ of your team.

-Go Cavs-