Having a new family has given Petey Jones a fresh perspective on life. The 17-year-old Cincinnati College Preparatory Academy (CCPA) senior and football standout is now working hard to complete high school with honors while living with his coach, Ryan Holdren, who has taken him in.
Holdren was Jones’s social studies teacher and the school’s veteran assistant football coach when they first met in seventh grade, just after the teen’s father passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack.
The two developed a friendship both in the classroom and on the football field, where Holdren made certain Jones could compete.
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Jones told Good Morning America, “We got to talking about football practice and somehow the conversation kind of stirred up, of, ‘Well, yeah, I don’t know if I can play football, Mr. Holdren, I don’t know if I’ll have a ride home or not.’ And it was kind of like, ‘Well, you never have to worry about that. We’ll always find a spot.'”
Jones’ mother died suddenly in 2021, while he was in eighth grade, just a year after that talk. His sister, with whom he had intended to live, also died in a house fire. Within two years, his entire world was altered.
The kind coach and his then-girlfriend, Caitlin, who is also a teacher at CCPA, provided Jones a place to stay, which swiftly extended to a few weeks.
After asking Jones if he was interested in a new arrangement, the Holdrens next spoke with the teen’s elder siblings about making the situation more permanent.
In 2022, after Jones and his family consented, Holdren applied for legal custody and Jones formally became a member of the Holdren family after custody was granted by Hamilton County Juvenile Court in February 2022. He was at Holdren and Caitlin’s wedding later that year.
In 2023, he expressed his joy of gaining a younger sibling when Caitlin delivered a son, saying, “I was happy because I’m the youngest of all my siblings, so I never really had no younger siblings. So I was happy to have a little brother, someone I could finally play with.”
The teen is captain of the varsity football team, maintains a 4.2 GPA, and has a part-time job.
Now an assistant principal and head varsity football coach at CCPA, Holdren said he witnessed firsthand how Jones has succeeded academically and personally on his own.
Holdren said, “This is all on Petey. His success is what he made it and we’re just trying to help along the way. Like I always tell him, the world is his.”
The teen continues to strive hard to get a scholarship to play football in college, where he hopes to study to become a nurse.
Like any parent of a high school senior, Caitlin acknowledged that although Jones will “excel” in college, she already feels anxious about the void his absence will cause.
She shared, “I would be lying if I said like there isn’t a selfish part of me that doesn’t want him to go super far away, just because our house is going to be different. We’ll miss him, miss him and Everett together, but I’m excited for wherever he chooses, what’s right for him.”
