You may have heard the story of Marcus Rios by now. A few days ago, the UCLA cornerback made an interception in the end zone against California to save a two-point win for the Bruins in the final minute of play. Coach Jim Mora gave Rios the game ball, marking the first time during Mora's tenure with the Bruins that he had made such a move.
Rios nearly died of an extremely rare fungal infection in his sinuses in 2013. It's a miracle that he's alive, let alone on the football field. What you might not have heard was what it took to get back on to the field.
It took a team of physicians and specialists at UCLA hospital, some of the best in the world, to even be able to correctly diagnose the infection. It took a group of strength coaches to build him back into playing shape.
And it was another team -- the Rios team of parents, nine siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins grandparents and friends all over Northern California -- who kept him from thinking the worst.
"I don't believe in negativity," said Rios' father, Richard. "I don't believe in crying, I don't believe being sorry for yourself, I don't believe in anything like that. I don't believe it helps the situation at all. There's people in this world that deal with things way, way worse than anything that we could have dealt with or every have to deal with..."We were going to fight."
In 2012, Rios left Consumnes Oaks High School in Elk Grove, Calif. a semester early in order to enroll at UCLA and participate in spring practice. A four-star defensive back, he was expected to contribute right away, and he did. Rios played in nine games, mostly on special teams, but he battled through pain the entire time.
"They kept saying it was a sinus infection, it was a sinus infection," Richard said. But the pain became increasingly more intense, then, excruciating. Rios couldn't sleep -- he couldn't see. "I was basically blind," he said. "I couldn't see at all. I just wanted to see again and I just wanted to sleep again."
Richard Rios and his wife, Ivy, both left their jobs and their house in the Sacramento area and made camp at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Finally, they had a diagnosis, but the prospects were grim.
Marcus Rios explained just how grim to the Los Angeles Times in April of 2013:
"It's very rare. Only 12 people have ever had it and eight of them have died. Two others recovered and then died later," he said.
"We don't fear things that we can't control," Richard Rios added. "That kid has been through a lot at a very early age and he stayed positive."
There were few things that Rios could control and he chose to focus on those. The hospital happens to be right next to Spaulding Field, where the Bruins practice. Rios asked for a room that overlooked the field. "I had that room right there," he says, pointing toward the south end of the field and up.
Rios and his dad would wake up every morning at 7 a.m. to watch the Bruins practice. It wasn't devastating ... it was motivating. "I was just real eager to get back out here," Rios said. "I understood my situation. I knew I was going to get better and I didn't fear anything. I was happy to watch my teammates out here working because I knew that we have goals, we want to achieve those goals and in order to do that we've got to work hard."
And then he decided that he wanted to motivate others, too. "We used to walk around the hospital and he would see kids and say, 'Hey, I'm a football player,'" Richard said. "He said this was going to be a motivational story."
Although it was of the highest concern to Marcus, football was the furthest thing from Richard and Ivy's minds when their son was sick. They saw him missing the sport, his team and the competition, but they didn't know how he shrunk to only 125 pounds.
It was unclear if Marcus would ever be the same player that he once was, or, the player he wanted to become. The instincts might still be there, but would Marcus be slower? Would he be durable? Would he even be able to catch a football again?
But none of those questions were as important as the one that Richard posed to Marcus soon after he was released from the hospital. "I wanted to make sure it was for him, not for anybody else," he said. "If it's truly his motivation, if that's what he wanted to do, then I knew he would do it. But I knew that if he wanted to do it for somebody else, it would be a hard road."
In order to get back on the field, Rios needed to put on weight and regain his strength. The lifelong athlete was excited to finally get back in the gym, but the mountain he knew he needed to climb suddenly felt like Mount Everest.
"Everything felt foreign, brand new," Rios said. "I've had a lot of surgeries, my freshman year and stuff, so I've had to start over. But this time was different. I was really, really weak. I really started from ground zero. I knew I had to work hard this offseason, so that's what I did."
Also during the offseason, Rios filmed a segment, which has not aired yet, for the Animal Planet show, "Monsters Inside Me," a documentary series that shows rare parasites that live on or in the human body.
Rios was anxious to get back on the field to help his team, and that's what he wanted the viewers to know.
"It's so weird how this worked out, his only concern prior to it airing was that he showed that he really had made an accomplishment," Richard said. "Him being on the field, in uniform and even being part of the team -- he thought he hadn't really made that big of an impact yet. The fact that he was able to capitalize on that opportunity prior to 'Monsters Inside Me', it's just the way that he told me it was going to happen.
"He told me that he would do something incredible before that show." The fact that Marcus Rios is even on the field is an incredible feat. But to Rios, that's not sufficient. Richard says his son wholeheartedly believes that he can go toe-to-toe with the best receivers in the country.
"I know all of the other teams we play, they're all going to test me," Rios said. "I would test myself if I saw this cornerback with very little game experience in there. So I just have to continue to work hard and stay ready, keep making plays."
Marcus' game-saving interception vs. Cal was a banner day for the Rios family. "We were in tears," Richard said. "We were just so happy for him. Just to see that and know that he's on the right path was a crazy moment."
