The scar along his spine and the other one on his hip represent the book jacket to Jason David's novel. They give you an idea of his story, but they hardly spell out the individual pages.
Plates, rods, and neck braces. Surgeries, procedures and rehab. Imagine living those chapters well after flying out of a teammate's car and listening to the prospect of never walking again, not to mention never pitching or hitting.
It doesn't take a private detective to wonder exactly how Jason David did it. And by it, The Heat Index means how did David survive a two-car collision, rehab in time to make the baseball team and then become Naperville's home-run king?
"We told people he was our hero, because he seemed to keep it together. He seemed to keep us together," said David's father John. "His spirits were always high, he was always positive. He tried to make everybody else feel better. When I took him home from the hospital, he said, 'It's probably best this happened to me, because I'm not sure if the other guys could have taken it.'"
For starters, Jason David's had some practice recovering from surgeries. He's had six now in four years of high school. The last two were a result of last summer's car accident with fellow Neuqua Valley baseball players Geoff Rowan, Jordan Williamson and Ryan Wagner.
But there's other reasons why David made his recovery from a broken neck, back, shoulder and nine ribs look so easy.
First, he's got the right mentality.
"I didn't see it as some catastrophic event or whatever," David said. "I just kind of saw it as another injury I had to start working on and get through again."
Second, he's got a strong support network.
"You know me, I'm pretty simple. I don't really have some big explanation," David said first, adding: "It's been cool just trying to see who your real friends are and stuff, to see who comes to support you when you have rough times like that.
"It's just like, everyone on our team was always over at the hospital. And all my friends and family were always there like 24/7 to the point where I was trying to kick them out sometimes, because they were there so often. I just wanted to lay by myself sometimes."
Nearly 11 months later, David's assembled a season to remember. Before Saturday's sectional championship, David was hitting .451 with 50 RBIs and a school-record 11 home runs in addition to a 5-1 record and 2.58 ERA as a pitcher. Those numbers have compelled Illinois State to hold a roster spot in his name as a walk-on next year.
Again, David did all of this after stuff like a cervical fracture and a thoracic dislocation. His shoulder doc told him he would never pitch again; there was too much soft-tissue damage, like somebody tried to yank his arm off.
"He was never a guy that said, 'Why me?" John David said. "He just said, 'Well, I'll get better. I'll work at it, and I'll get better."
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