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Bama News
New Tide RB a top prospect and aspiring heart surgeon
Jase McClellan was one of the top-ranked players in Alabama's 2020 signing class.
After undergoing knee surgery last year, Jase McClellan had an unusual request for his doctor.
Is there a video of the surgery?
If so, can I have a copy of it?
“I was like, ‘What!? Who asks that?’” his mother, Mia McClellan, recalled. “But that’s him.”
It’s not like his mom should have been surprised by the request.
Alabama’s freshman running back is a unique young man. And not just from a talent perspective.
The Texas product is a rare combination — a top football prospect who also wants to one day be a heart surgeon.
“There’s probably not too many times that a player you’re recruiting wants to be a heart surgeon,” McClellan’s mom joked. “But Alabama actually took their time with getting to know Jase as Jase. Not Jase the football player. But just Jase. And hearing them say that they would provide him with everything that he needed during the course of him being at Alabama was one of the things that stuck out to me.”
While many football players use YouTube to watch football-related videos, McClellan uses it for something else.
To watch different forms of surgeries.
That’s not new either.
The goal of being a doctor goes back to elementary school. And the heart surgeon part of it goes back to at least middle school.
His mother thought he’d eventually grow out of it.
He never did.
He’s always excelled in science,” his mother said. “And after he was commended on his science testing in the eighth grade, his counselor asked him: What are you thinking about being when you grow up? And he mentioned it to her — a heart surgeon. And still to this day, he sits up on YouTube and watches operations, anything he can find being performed. He’s fascinated with the body.”
McClellan’s interest in being a surgeon is serious enough that he’ll have an uncommon major for a football player.
Biology.
“When I asked him about what he wants to be when he gets out college and he said about wanting to be a surgeon, I said, ‘OK, if you really want to be a surgeon, then you need to look at the percentages that are accepted to med school from these universities,’” said McClellan’s high school coach, Tim Buchanan. “I explained to him that football can be over in one play, but the education you get is going to last you a lifetime and don’t let it be just football that makes the decision for you. And I think that was one of the things that he liked about Alabama. It’s a good school and a very, very well-respected school academically and athletically.”
The pursuit of medical school likely wouldn’t come until a ways down the road, though.
That’s because of the talent McClellan has from a football standpoint.
In McClellan, Alabama is getting one of the top running back prospects to come out of Texas since 2016.
Only two Texas running backs have been ranked higher as recruits during that span — five-star TCU signee Zachary Evans and former Ohio State star J.K. Dobbins.
The former Oklahoma commit ran for 6,685 yards and 122 touchdowns at Aledo High School, was twice selected as the offensive MVP of the state title game and was rated as the 46th-best overall player in the 2020 recruiting class within the 247Sports Composite rankings.
Despite being limited by an ankle injury at the time, McClellan closed out his high school career by running for 218 yards and two touchdowns during a 45-42 win in the Texas Class 5A Division II state championship game.
“Jase is really smooth, really explosive, really good hands,” Tide coach Nick Saban said during the 247Sports Signing Day Show in December. “Just an all-around, very, very talented player. Some of these guys, they’re great with the ball in their hands, but they don’t do other things. He does it all, and he’s a really great receiver, so we were excited about him. We think he has great character as well.”
It will be more of the same now that McClellan’s at Alabama.
More of McClellan looking to create YouTube worthy plays on the football field.
And more of his own personal research on YouTube as he preps for that other potential career, too
