When Mike Hollins woke up in the hospital last November after suffering a tragic gunshot wound and undergoing emergency surgery, football was a distant thought at best.
Doctors initially believed it would be four to six months before he could lift anything or even put on his own socks. The next day, he got out of bed and walked himself to the bathroom. That made the nurse happy and simultaneously cautious, but it began to alter the doctors’ predictive timetable for future possibilities physically.
It did not alter what burdened Hollins the most, though. Mentally, he had to cope with losing three Virginia football teammates and friends killed in the same shooting; another UVA student Marlee Morgan was also wounded but survived. How could he help carry the legacy left behind by D’Sean Perry, Lavel Davis Jr., and Devin Chandler? That’s something that occupies his thoughts even now. Plus, communities in Louisiana and Charlottesville looked to him as an inspiration as he survived the tragedy.
“To be honest, football was the furthest thing from my mind up until I got back to campus,” Hollins said. “I couldn’t, I wasn’t capable of thinking of anything else besides everything that went down here on campus, how I could keep their flame lit, how I could keep my flame lit, and keep myself going and put on the veil when I go outside of the house and be that inspiration that everybody looks at me to be. It was tough, but I’m still going.”
Hollins’ role as an inspiration continues four months after the tragedy rocked the University of Virginia and beyond. The UVA football team opened spring practice last week on March 14, the first official practices since the remainder of the season was canceled last November. Hollins retook the field with his teammates.
It’s hard to call that anything but incredible, given the injuries from the gunshot wound and the initial timetable to do anything physically challenging. Hollins actually made it back much sooner, participating in the Wahoo Drills winter workouts with the team. That’s when coaches and teammates first started to see the ‘Iron Mike’ nickname earned early in his career take on a new meaning.
Virginia running backs coach Keith Gaither recalled those early workouts this winter as an eye-opener.
“He didn’t just exist in those drills. He won a lot of battles and he’s up in front, just his competitive spirit, the way he was leading, the way he was battling and competing amongst his peers, that’s when in my eyes I was like ‘Oh,’” Gaither said. “I was just expecting Mike to be there, to be amongst us, but he wasn’t just there, he was winning races, winning competition drills, so basically letting people know I’m the same old Mike.”
The ability to bounce back quickly did not surprise Hollins himself. He said he never doubted his ability to make a physical recovery or didn’t worry about whether he could squat lift the same amount or run the same speed as before. In fact, Hollins said “the physical part was by far the easiest of this whole experience” in terms or recovering. His body has developed the ability to return from physical punishment through years of football. He likened it to pushing pause on football and then hitting play again. He has regained much of the 20 pounds he lost after the shooting.
The mental aspect, however, was – and is – a completely new process.
When Hollins prepares to go to practice, there isn’t a quick call to a teammate like D’Sean Perry.
“I expected to recover physically already so it really wasn’t on my mind of how am I going to get back, it was more how am I even going to make it practice without calling D’Sean?” Hollins said. “Just the little things. It was more mental. It was never, ever physical for me … it’s the things I couldn’t change that bothered me the most.”
Navigating those emotions, returning to football, and interacting with those around him continues to be part of the day by day recovery journey for Hollins.
Physically, while he’s cleared and back at practice, everyone is still taking it slowly with the volume of work he takes on and how he participates in certain portions of practice. Gaither said that never leaves his mind when he makes plans and that he consults with Hollins before each day begins. While Hollins said there “isn’t really any physical pain now,” he’s still building back the muscle groups and working back to a comfort level playing. Contact football is different than drills, after all.
Hollins faced injuries around his core including some digestion concerns and his abdomen had stitches and staples in multiple places following surgery. While he would love to jump right into things at any time, he said he knows he has to be honest with himself, trainers, and coaches about how his body feels daily. At this stage, the start of the season still remains further away than the shooting so there’s time.
Hollins has found constant motivation to make it back to the field.
“So much has pushed me,” Hollins said. “I can’t say it’s one thing or one person, but I could say the amazing support and talking to the parents of my passed teammates, talking to the siblings, just keeping them on my mind is – they don’t leave my mind. So it’s a constant motivation, a constant drive, a constant effort to keep their flame lit and keep their legacy going. I can’t lay one finger on what’s pushing me these days. It’s God. It’s my family. It’s the support. It’s the families. It’s the community who are looking up to me as an inspiration for unwanted circumstances, but I’m put in this position for a reason and I’m just trying to trust that God will guide my journey.”
That motivation goes well beyond the playing surface, though.
Hollins graduated last December, but has started working toward a Master’s Degree for December 2023 in higher education from the School of Education and Higher Development. Even that choice is motivated in part from his experience. He said a lot of places around the country aren’t equipped with the right tools to help athletes or even coaches or peers who are struggling mentally. A degree in the field can help change that.
The memories of D’Sean Perry, Lavel Davis Jr., and Devin Chandler anchor it all.
“It inspires me to push harder in everything,” Hollins said. “I was just talking earlier – it inspired me more off the field than on the field. It opened my eyes to a lot of things that football is such a small part of life, such a small part of my journey. Losing my brothers, it was just like ‘wow, it can be gone in any moment.’ So how can I keep their flame lit? And I didn’t want to just do it through football. It’s broadened to calling my little brother every night making sure he did his homework, making sure he stretched, and drank water. Calling my mom, making sure she’s drinking her water and making sure she’s OK. My grandmother, my sister, teammates. It spread. Just showing gratitude and appreciation is something I really gained from this experience. It has all around made me more determined to be better everywhere just for the ones I’ve lost and just so I can be comfortable in saying I’m carrying forward their legacy.”
Pursuing his graduate studies at Virginia was not necessarily a given. The shooting occurred on Grounds and Hollins said he considered leaving, like anyone likely would after a tragedy. In the end, though, he elected to return to Charlottesville and the team.
“I could have left, I could have transferred but I just think of that as sweeping things under the rug and not handling the situation as best as I could,” Hollins said. “I think the best place for me to move forward, not move on but move forward, and carry everything is from Charlottesville with the people who shared that experience with me. I know no one across the country feels the way we feel here in the facility, no one in the country knows how I feel about the situation besides the people here in this facility, and I got an uneasy feeling when I thought about leaving. Because I could have left, what if the coaches, what if I didn’t have the same support because they didn’t go through the experience with me. They didn’t know D’Sean, they didn’t coach Lavel, they didn’t know Devin. Those little things are what kept me here and I’m glad I stayed because the support is what I need right now to get through.”
Hollins has found that support all around Grounds, not just within the football program.
The return to the University was “overwhelming” at first and the early days contained multiple people approaching him daily with questions, but overall he said the support from teachers, classmates, and teammates has been great. He said he appreciates when someone asks small questions like ‘Are you doing better?’ or ‘Is today better than yesterday?’ and shows genuine concern for his well-being.
Generally, Hollins said that no one is forcing support on to him either. It’s given when needed.
It all has been a day by day process that started with his return from the winter break.
“I’ll start with my first day coming back to Grounds in the winter,” Hollins said. “It was a bit overwhelming obviously for obvious reasons. But just being around my teammates and my coaches, from top to bottom the support has been amazing. From Miss Carla [Williams] to the janitors to the people in the dining hall, they’re all showing great support. I just feel really blessed to be back on Grounds and to be able to continue my dream, my former teammates’ dream, to graduate last December, graduate again this December. It’s just a lot of blessings in some tough times that are hard to see, but I try to continue to move forward.”
While Hollins continues to move forward and tries to honor the lives lost, there still is no answer to one of the tragedy’s most difficult questions. Why? Hollins said he knows that he won’t get an answer for that, something that he tries to deal with through patience and trusting that God has a plan that put him in a position to inspire and bless others.
“I mean it’s a literally miracle that I’m here today,” Hollins said. “Just living that out. My mom tells me be a blessing to others, make someone smile, make someone’s day every day, and spread my blessings so that’s what I try to do.”
