Senior Spotlight: JuMichael Ramos

RALEIGH, N.C. - Ask JuMichael Ramos who he calls family.

He'll tell you about his sisters and the new houses they just moved into. He'll tell you about his nephews and his niece, and he'll say that they're doing great. He'll tell you about his mom, a nurse tech at the hospital, and everything she's done for him. He'll tell you about his dad and how he's always wanted to be just like him.

He'll also talk about the NC State football team. He'll talk about Johnathan Alston and the touchdown pass that he caught against top-ranked Florida State before making the switch to playing cornerback. He'll talk about Jerod Fernandez and Gavin Locklear and the rest of the redshirt seniors who have been through all of it with him for the last five years. And he'll talk about how close he is with the whole team, how this team is a family.

"It's a brotherhood," said Ramos. "And we get to share this great experience."

Ramos was brought into the NC State football family in 2013. As a three-star wide receiver out of Lovejoy, Georgia, he originally committed to spend his collegiate career playing for Georgia Tech. The school is just a forty-minute drive north of his hometown. It was practically home.

The weekend before signing day, Ramos visited NC State, and he felt an instant connection with the program. A new coaching staff had arrived, and along with it came the goal to pass the ball more, a dream come true for the wide receiver recruit. Though it would mean attending school farther away from his family, Ramos felt valued by the NC State coaching staff and by his future teammates.

"I had a few Georgia boys on the team that I was comfortable with at the time, and they took me in," said Ramos. "That's what really got me sold on North Carolina State."

But being a part of this team and this family hasn't always been easy, and Ramos is one of the first to attest to that after a roller coaster of a career.

He began his freshman season in the fall of 2013 by contributing immediately to the Wolfpack offense. The wideout saw action in 11 games and racked up 24 catches for 352 yards. All three of his touchdown receptions came in the last three games of the season, leading to him being named a co-winner of the Philip Rivers Award for Most Valuable Freshman at the team's annual awards banquet.

After a 2014 season during which he saw only two passes come his way, Ramos used the offseason leading up to his junior year to regain his confidence and prove his capability of once again being an integral part of the Wolfpack's offensive scheme.

The result? Thirteen games with seven starts. Thirty-four catches for 457 yards and three touchdowns. The only teammate that bested him in receiving yards was Jaylen Samuels, and Ramos still saw his fair share of games as the leading receiver. He ended the 2015 campaign as co-recipient of the Alpha Rising Award, which is a team honor that is given to the most improved player. He felt more than ever that he was a part of the Wolfpack football family.

Two knee surgeries instantly changed things for Ramos. The news reached all the way to ESPN as the Wolfpack lost one of its best receivers just weeks before the 2016 season was to begin. He needed a cartilage transplant to prevent the bones in his knees from rubbing against one another. The operations put Ramos on crutches for six weeks and called for a year of recovery and rehabilitation. He went from running routes to having trouble with moving from side to side, from hauling in catches during games to standing on the sideline and having to settle for making mental plays.

"Being out a year and never knowing if I'd be able to play again, it was very emotional," said Ramos. "I doubted myself a lot of the times, but I knew I had to be patient about it."

In the meantime, Ramos embraced his role as a seasoned member of the receiving corps, and he used that position to be a positive role model on the field during practice and during games. He continued to be there for the team that he calls his family.

"I tried to take on the role of being the receivers' and everybody else's biggest fan," said Ramos. "I tried to keep my guys on the right track and tell them some of the things that are better coming from a fellow receiver. Being able to do that was important to me."

Ramos also earned his degree from NC State and started graduate school.

"I know it's a big deal to graduate, but my family made it an even bigger deal," said Ramos. "I've seen my parents work so hard for me to get to this point. Growing up, my mom always told me that God can take away your ability to play, but nobody can ever take your degree and the things that you've worked hard for."

Now, over a year out from his season-ending surgeries, Ramos is still a part of the NC State football family in the midst of his redshirt senior season and his final season of eligibility. He made his return to the field of play as a starter in the Marshall game.

"Being able to run my first routes, doing one-on-ones, I didn't know it was going to hit me that hard," said Ramos. "I teared up a little bit because I was able to get back there."

Ramos isn't approaching this fall as an opportunity to make up for lost time. He acknowledges that the 619 days that passed between his last game in 2015 to entering his first game in 2017 are not erasable. But he does aim to grow from his experiences and to use all of it to make him a better player, a better teammate, a better member of this family.

"When my name is called, I want to be able to make plays," said Ramos. "Knowing that I can still do this, that I can still play, it's a great emotion being able to see all the work I put in pay off."

Ramos knows that his career as a player will soon be over. He knows that he'll one day tell stories to his own family about his years at NC State. But he says that it won't be stories of a certain touchdown catch or a big upset that he'll recall. Instead, he'll choose to remember what it was like to call himself a part of this family, a family that took the field together every Saturday in the fall to play the game that they all love.

"The thing I'll remember most is having the opportunity to be out there on the field with them and share that moment with them," said Ramos. "It's just you and the ones you love so much. We're a family that is working together to make each other better, and we're taking this journey by storm."

North Carolina State University Athletics

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