Inside Grayson Pope's path from six weeks in a coma to Tennessee baseball

Grayson Pope has accepted the imperfection of his favorite pair of shorts.

He knows they weren’t always that way. The gray Lululemon shorts were perfect when he got them early in high school. But perfection is fleeting and slips away as abruptly as a permanent marker tumbling and landing ink-side down, leaving a black dot that is as the marker says — permanent. 

Pope sees that mark on the left leg every time he wears his favorite shorts now, a tiny reminder of a long period of his life that requires no reminder.

It happened at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta in late 2023. Pope couldn’t speak then in the wake of the accident that forever changed his life and almost took it. He communicated via whiteboard and marker, the latter falling from his right hand and taking an unfortunate bounce onto the shorts. 

“That mark is never going away,” Pope said.

Neither is Pope.

The Tennessee baseball student manager survived a tree falling onto his golf cart in June 2023. He spent six weeks in a coma and months rehabbing. He is defying odds and denying limits to take back as much of what he lost as he can — and he is mastering finding the beauty in the imperfections of a life uncharted. 

How Grayson Pope was injured in an accident on the golf course

Pope still has the scorecard from Trussville Country Club.

It’s all ripped up and was in his childhood bedroom at his parents’ old house until they moved in September. The final few holes have no scores. Pope and his friends never finished the round.

“I remember absolutely nothing from that day — thankfully,” Pope said.

Pope can tell the story so well you’d think he remembers. The details have been filled in with small memories that flash back and conversations with those who were there on June 6, 2023.

He knows it was a beautiful summer afternoon when he and three friends went out for a round of golf. He was told it turned ugly, a wicked pop-up thunderstorm ripping through the area as the boys putted on the final hole they played. 

They planned to wait out the storm in the clubhouse but never got there.

Brett Moseley, a teammate of Pope’s at Hewitt-Trussville and an outfielder at Ole Miss, rode with Pope in their golf cart. 

A massive oak tree crashed onto their cart on the path, smashing it downward. Moseley was tossed from the cart. Pope took the brunt of the blow and was knocked unconscious.

Colby Durden and Sam Scarborough — the other pair golfing — rushed to help. They tried to call 911 but it was raining so heavily that they couldn’t use their phones. They used Siri to dial the emergency call, while rushing to the clubhouse for help.

Moseley knew he wasn’t supposed to touch Pope, but chose to move him to a clear, flat area.

“He was scared that another tree would fall,” Pope said. “He knew he shouldn’t pick me up but he did anyway and moved me. Another tree fell right there.”

David Pope — Pope’s father — got a call around 5:30 p.m. from a friend and former little league coach of Pope’s who had joined the boys on the course during the round. David didn’t feel well that day and didn’t answer. His phone rang again as a mother of one of the other boys called and the internal alarms of a parent went off. He checked his voice mail and listened to a panicked voice about an accident on the golf course. 

Durden’s mother called Jamie Pope, Pope’s mom, to relay there had been an accident but the rain had drowned out what Durden attempted to tell her on the phone. 

Jamie, who was leaving a workout class, called Pope five or six times but got no answer. David rang her and said she needed to get to the golf course immediately. 

Both parents hurtled to the scene. David arrived at hole No. 10 and cut across. Jamie came down from the 18th hole by the clubhouse and jumped out, leaving her car running.

“This guy out of nowhere — I still think he was an angel — he was on a golf cart,” Jamie said. “He said, ‘Are you here for the young man that is hurt?’ I said, ‘Yes, can you take me to him.’ ”

Both sprinted the final stretches to where Pope was. Jamie saw the tree but not the cart, which she viewed as God’s mercy and protection over a mother. David saw both, including the blood in the cart.

A panicked Moseley promised David that Pope had never stopped breathing and he had his hand over his chest the whole time.

Jamie wasn’t allowed to touch her son or talk to him. The paramedics needed to know where she wanted him to be taken because time was of the utmost importance. She threw David the keys to her car and got in the ambulance. David parked Jamie’s car, grabbed Pope’s belongings from his truck and headed to the hospital repeating the same prayer over and over.

“Let me leave this hospital with my son,” David said.

Inside the early days of Grayson Pope’s recovery at UAB Hospital

Jamie walked until she couldn’t walk anymore.

Up against a wall somewhere within the winding halls of UAB Hospital, she begged God to not take her son from her. 

“It was the strangest, scariest peace I felt,” Jamie said. “It was very warm and it was very hot. I just immediately stopped crying. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. He is going to be okay.’ ”

Pope was rushed to UAB Hospital in downtown Birmingham. He should have been life-flighted but the weather prohibited it. The ambulance driver drove more than 100 mph to get Pope to Birmingham, having made the call not to take Pope to the closest hospital but the one best suited for his needs.

Jamie watched through the small window from the front to the back, where Pope was tended to by two paramedics. She thought as long as they aren’t doing CPR, he is okay and alive. Then a paramedic put a backpack in front of the window.

“When you are dying, you start to clench,” Jamie said. “They were trying to intubate him but they could not because he was too tight. They were begging UAB to let them do it in the ambulance.”

Pope had a traumatic brain injury with hundreds of brain bleeds, brain swelling and damage to his brain stem from the tree landing on the golf cart. He arrived at UAB in a coma and remained comatose for 42 days.

Pope’s brain kept swelling and the pressure on his brain rose in his early hours at the hospital. Doctors told the Popes that the first 72 hours would determine his future. 

On the third day, a doctor reviewed Pope’s latest CT scan and delivered a dire diagnosis. He said every fiber of Pope’s brain was bleeding and bruised, outlining everything wrong with it. He indicated Pope’s brain was so severely damaged he was unlikely to survive.

“That is hard news to hear when you are looking at a perfectly healthy and athletic 16-year-old,” David said. “But God had bigger and better plans for sure.”

Jamie fled to pray, walking until she hit a wall where she implored God to let her son live. David wandered until he found the chapel, going to his knees and praying the same prayer — and finding the same peace. 

They both believed Pope would live. 

“God has done a lot of miraculous things that are unexplainable,” Jamie said. “There are a whole lot of things that are not medically explainable for why Grayson is still here.”

Pope had seven surgeries at UAB. Doctors removed a large portion of his skull to allow his brain to swell and relieve pressure. He underwent constant scans and tests to check his brain. Doctors and nurses pinched his upper body then lower body then feet to check for a response. 

Pope was taken off life support after a week. He started breathing on his own again at UAB as a machine showed his body was working to breathe independently on his fourth or fifth day in the hospital.

“That was the first time I was like, ‘Okay, he is trying to breathe on his own,’ ” David said.

Pope had a tracheotomy twice to help him breathe, broken fingers fixed and more. He had a feeding tube to eat. He had a fake skull put in place of his shattered skull that was removed. He endured neurostorming, the body’s fight or flight response triggered by his brain injury. His fever rocketed to 104, his body shook and his blood pressure rose for up to an hour.

“That was the worst thing for me,” Jamie said. “Sometimes, it felt like it was never going to end. I am so thankful he doesn’t remember it. But we will never forget it. I would rather remember it than him remember it.”

Pope started responding to prodding from doctors after about three weeks in the hospital. He gave a thumbs up. Then he would snap his fingers, little signs of movement that spurred hope. He went through occupational therapy and physical therapy to help move his muscles.

Pope was surrounded by visitors, support and prayer throughout his time at the hospital. His sister, Emma, was his favorite supporter. She was on a retreat in North Carolina at the time of the accident but was a constant presence at the hospital. Jamie slept in a chair at the hospital for six weeks that did not recline. She would not leave him there.

The Popes didn’t know if he would ever walk again or what the future would look like, but Pope was going to live.

“We didn’t care, but Grayson had other plans,” David said. 

How Grayson Pope learned to walk again at Shepherd Center

Pope’s first memory after the accident is more a glimmer than a recollection.

He remembers being in the back of an ambulance and looking out the window on the way from Birmingham to Atlanta. He was so hot and sweaty as he headed for Shepherd Center, a world-class rehabilitation center for injuries such as Pope’s.

“I have said from the beginning that UAB saved his life and Shepherd Center gave him his life back,” Jamie said. 

Pope spent six weeks at UAB. He spent the following five months at Shepherd Center relearning skills from walking to talking.

On his first day, Pope was put in an inversion table and slowly raised until he was vertical for the first time since the accident. His parents were able to hug him in his first week in Atlanta. 

“We thought it was so cool to be able to stand there and look him in the eyes and him looking at us,” David said. 

Pope went through an in-patient program at Shepherd Center first. He was in all varieties of therapy — speech, physical and occupational — for six days a week with Sundays off. He started his time in a wheelchair that supported him entirely and he progressed into one he could operate himself. 

After a month at Shepherd Center, a doctor sat down with the Popes to show him the latest scan of Pope’s brain. It was healing, but the doctor warned them that Pope might not walk again and if he did he would likely need assistance. 

“When Grayson was told that, he went into work mode,” Jamie said. “He told everybody there that I will walk out of here with no assistance — and he did.”

Pope learned to stand then step. He worked on a zero gravity machine so he could not fall. He walked with guardrails and a gait belt, all slowly progressing him toward walking on his own. He pushed and pushed to do more so he could walk again.

“All I could think while I was there was how do I get out? How do I get better? What can I do?” Pope said. “They let me do stuff I probably shouldn’t have been able to but just because I kept begging.”

Pope conquered his goals: He walked out of Shepherd Center on Sept. 22, 2023, and into the outpatient program. He lived in an apartment with his parents, who both worked remotely — Jamie for the American Heart Association and David for AT&T. 

He needed help with everything from bathing to eating. 

“It was bringing your newborn home from the hospital again,” Jamie said.

Pope had his feeding tube removed on his last day of inpatient, but was still on soft foods. He dropped from 165 pounds to 119 and had grown two inches while in a coma. He drank a lot of milkshakes and protein shakes, but also was given liquified foods like chicken parmesan. 

“I couldn’t eat for a long time and when I could it was not good,” Pope said.

Pope communicated with a whiteboard and marker from his time at UAB Hospital through inpatient at Shepherd Center. He also had a board on which he could point to his needs with his vocal cords paralyzed.

During outpatient, he got his voice back. Jamie tried to get him to say “mom” and one day in October he coughed and a drawn-out “moooooom” came out. His voice was a whisper, but he could speak again. He called Emma constantly on FaceTime after she went back to school at Auburn, where she switched her major to occupational therapy.

He was discharged on Nov. 17, 2023, and headed back to life.

“Still to this day, he works his booty off daily — 24 hours a day,” Jamie said. “He works to do everything he does.”

Grayson Pope came back to baseball after accident, rehab

Pope developed a ritual in little league.

Every time he walked to the plate, he put the bat down near his feet. He rose, put the bat behind his back and then settled into his stance. 

Pope did that again in April 2025 on his senior night at Hewitt-Trussville, going to the plate and doing the routine that he had done since he was first playing the game. 

“It was like the world stopped for a second and it was like nothing had ever happened just for a split-second and was the coolest thing ever,” Jamie said. 

Pope doesn’t want to brag. But he was good at baseball. He did everything with speed. He was a terror on the bases. The 5-foot-11 outfielder had range to make plays in the gaps in center field. He stretched singles into doubles and double into triples.

He was really, really good. 

His skills were so notable that Tennessee had offered him a scholarship before his sophomore season. He committed months before the accident to the school he dreamed about playing for when the family lived in Knoxville. 

The accident could have derailed his future. But that’s not how Pope goes about life.

In time, his smile came back. His eyes returned. Getting as much as possible back was the mission. 

He missed his entire first semester of his junior year. There were conversations about holding him back a year, but Pope wasn’t interested. He wanted to graduate high school with the friends he’d grown up with. 

Pope got a full-time aid that went to every class with him for the spring semester. He took four normal classes and two online classes to catch up on what he missed. He caught back up to his classmates so he could graduate on schedule. 

“His mind is completely, 100% Grayson,” Jamie said. “He doesn’t talk as well and doesn’t talk as fast and doesn’t walk as fast. His personality is the same. His little wittiness is the same. We started seeing that come back after the first year. Then time keeps going on and we keep seeing it.”

His love for baseball never dwindled.

“I loved the game,” Pope said. “I have had people say I was the best leader on and off the field, which is super big for me. I feel like that is a great attribute.”

Pope trained as his mobility increased. He worked out and added strength and movement little by little. 

He threw out a first before an Alabama game against Tennessee in March 2024. He threw it to Alabama pitcher Riley Quick, a longtime friend. He saw former Vols coach Tony Vitello before the game.

Pope got to a point where he hopped in the batting cage with his friends. He hit off the machine one day with the velocity set near 90 mph. He whiffed his first two attempts, but barreled the third one and it felt natural again.

Pope remained part of the team at Hewitt-Trussville, but from the dugout. He lingered around on senior day against Hoover when the coach told him he was up. He grabbed a bat and a helmet, making his way to the plate while “Without Me” by Eminem played, declaring him back.

Pope knew the Hoover pitcher, who was told he could pitch to Pope. Hoover opted to intentionally walk him, which Pope decided meant they were scared of him. 

He bat flipped and walked to first without any assistance. 

“It felt like everything was right,” Pope said. 

How Grayson Pope found and held a home with Tennessee baseball

Pope carried a chair from the first-base dugout over to the third-base dugout before Tennessee’s first scrimmage in late September.

He walked out to right field to join his teammates. He was right where he belongs.

“It means everything,” Pope said. “I couldn’t put it into words what it means to me. This was my dream forever. The fact that they stood by me to make this come true, I don’t even know what to say. It is just so good.”

The Popes lived in Knoxville until Pope was 5. He ran the bases after a game at Lindsey Nelson Stadium when he was a 4-year-old. He told Jamie then that he would play baseball at Tennessee and never wavered from that dream.

Pope took the offer from UT the day he got it. He was wearing a Tennessee polo the day of the accident that he got after he committed. 

“He wanted to be a Tennessee Vol and he is from an amazing family,” Tennessee coach Josh Elander said. “He committed to us when he was really young and we always try to stick with our guys.”

Pope committed to Tennessee and Tennessee committed to Pope. 

Vitello could not directly contact the Popes due to NCAA recruiting rules at the time of the accident. But Vitello sent a video to the Popes via someone else to let them know he knew what was going on and the Vols were there for Pope. 

He came to Atlanta to visit Pope at Shepherd Center on Aug. 1, the first day of the contact period. Elander made a visit as well to see Pope, telling the family the Vols would do all they could for him. The message was consistent: Pope was still coming to Tennessee.

Pope, 19, visited Tennessee for every home football game he could and made an official visit. The staff sent him all the graphics to announce his signing. The athletic department made sure Pope would still be taken care of with roster size changes.

The papers arrived for him to sign in November 2024, cementing the promises made to the Popes. 

“They never left my side,” Pope said.

Pope is completely part of the team. He just doesn’t play. He is behind the batting cage pregame. He helps by contributing his knowledge of the game, which continues to grow at UT. He’s chipping in and seeking ways to make the team and program better in a different way than he expected.

Pope is elite at one of his No. 1 missions: He keeps the vibes up.

“His comedic relief is a good jolt like all the time,” Elander said. “He is kind of the hype man as he says. He is running around all over the place and giving high-fives to guys before the game. I think it just offers perspective for everybody. He is never having a bad day here.”

Pope still dreams of playing baseball again. He has accepted it might not be part of his future, though. He always envisioned himself coaching at some point. He’s happy because he’s still around the game he has loved since he was a kid — at the place he has loved since he was a kid.

He loves being with his teammates, who love being with him. 

It’s an answered prayer for David, who long prayed that his kids would make an impact on people around him. 

“For Grayson, I always thought it would be through baseball,” David said. “I always talked to him about making sure you give back because God gave you this ability. You need to share with others and help kids who look up to you. I guess he is able to do that now in a different way.”

Pope accepted that.

It’s a choice he has made and continues to make daily. He probably shouldn’t be alive, but he is. He has survived, strived and thrived for almost three years since the accident.

It’s not perfect. But he’s alive.

“I am here,” Pope said. “Praise God.”

If Pope ever forgets, he’s always got a perfectly imperfect pair of shorts to remind him.