Snelling Offers Special Address

Falcons running back Jason Snelling was 15 when he was diagnosed with epilepsy.

The first seizure came one morning before school. His brother couldn’t get him out of bed and, at first, thought Jason was finding a way to get out of class.

Snelling woke up in a hospital.

“It was a lot of worry and anxiety wondering ‘what is this condition that I have?,’” he said. “It wasn’t an easy journey for me.”

Snelling spoke recently at the Epilepsy Foundation of Georgia Taste of Love Gala, detailing his family’s lengthy search for answers and how the condition almost ended his football career.

“I didn’t know what was going on,” Snelling said. “It was something new to me that I never thought in a million years that I’d be dealing with a condition that would require me to take medication and have to take a serious outlook on my life to do the things I love to do.”

Snelling took medication and kept playing football. He earned a scholarship to Virginia and went through his first year with the Cavaliers with few problems but, without warning, he started having “multiple seizures a day.”

He became a part-time student his sophomore year and debated leaving football for good.

“I took about six hours of classes; I was out the whole year concentrating on what I wanted to do,” Snelling said at the annual fund-raising event. “I realized I can make it past this… A lot of support staff and doctors and help from my family — the people that loved me the most — got me motivated to stay on track.”

Snelling was selected in the seventh round of the 2007 Draft and, in 2009, led the team in rushing in Michael Turner’s absence. He finished the year with 613 yards and four touchdowns on the ground.

His spirited play in the final moments of the team’s Week 17 win in Tampa helped secure the first back-to-back winning seasons in team history.

Now he wants to share his story with as many people as possible and is active with foundations designed to spread awareness of epilepsy.

“People started hearing my story, being an athlete with this condition,” he said. “As I started sharing my story I realized how much it affected people with my condition… We, as people, can come together and try to rectify this condition.”