Jai Patel’s journey to Rutgers saw a serious medical crisis that nearly derailed his college career.
PISCATAWAY, N.J. — It came without warning for Jai Patel, the Rutgers football kicker who had no indication in the spring of 2022 that something was drastically wrong in his body.
He should have been coasting into senior prom and graduation. Spring break was on the horizon for Patel and then the home stretch of his high school career.
It was mid-March of his senior year when Patel was getting ready for school and felt a tightening in his lung. He remembers brushing his teeth and thinking nothing of the pain, chalking it up to heartburn or indigestion.
He remembers the time: School was set to begin in an hour and Patel and was focused on getting out the door. He doesn’t like to be late.
Then it began to happen he says, “again and again and again.” The pain would not go away. The tightening was feeling worse.
“Eventually it’s like – I just was so tight. I had trouble breathing,” Patel told Rutgers Wire.
“I called my mom and she helped me get me in the car and then we just rushed out.”
He spent the next week in the hospital with a collapsed lung. The next six weeks were spent rehabbing and in recovery. But, physically, he was nowhere near where was prior to hospitalization.
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Patel was one of the top kickers in the nation in the 2022 recruiting class. He had committed to Rutgers early in the process as a preferred walk-on. That fall, he had become a bit of a rock star at Rutgers as he would attend games and stand with the students.
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His future classmates loved it and he began bringing recruits and commits into the student section along with him.
But here he was, roughly two months away from reporting to Rutgers as a freshman and he was nowhere near ready. Running and lifting at the level he was accustomed to was simply not something he was physically ready to do.
He admits to not knowing what was going to happen when he stepped foot on campus. If he would be able to participate or practice fully or how any of this could play out for him.
His doctors fully cleared him right before practice, but he says he was still relatively weak by the time he arrived at Rutgers.
“It kind of surprised me because I felt like on my own I was having trouble but I got here and something just clicked magically in my body and I was ready to go full,” Patel said.
“Got to do the running, do the lifting and it felt like nothing ever happened to me – I was back to my normal self.”
Last season was a redshirt year for Patel and it paid off. He packed on some muscle and has added some distance to his kicks. This year, he won the starting job during training camp and has been very accurate for Rutgers.
On the season, he is 11-of-13 on field goal attempts and 26-for-27 on point-after attempts.
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Earlier in the season, he was named the Big Ten Special Teams Player of the Week following three field goals made in a win over Temple. This included a 51-yard field goal that he hit with some leg to spare.
“He works very hard at his craft. He has his whole life,” Head coach Greg Schiano said on Wednesday following practice.
“He has a lot of time invested in what he’s doing. So we’re fortunate to have Jai.”
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Rutgers runs deep in his family, with both his sisters having graduated from the school. His family is passionate about attending his games and supporting him.
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Patel said that this has been a dream come true for him as he has integrated himself as a valuable piece of the special teams unit. His collapsed lung happened about 20 months ago but it seems like an eternity.
It doesn’t define who he is, but he has definitely appreciated the journey and where it has taken him at Rutgers.
“I just approached every day as coming in, just wanting to work hard and do the best I can,” Patel said.
“I do put a lot of work into this; I’ve been training since sixth grade and we always talk here about how no job is open and no one is an incumbent starter. So me and Jude (McAtamney) competed really hard. He’s a really good competitor. He’s doing a fantastic job on kickoff.
“And coach kind of just felt like my accuracy with his power is a great combination for our specialist room. So coming in every day, I’m trying to work hard and just trying to be competitive and be the best player I can for our team.”
