'It’s all I’ve been thinking about': Jack Mahoney makes triumphant return

Shannon and Tim Mahoney were used to it. 

Thump. Whack. Thump. Whack.

That’s the sound those two would typically fall asleep and wake up to on any given day in their Algonquin, Illinois home.

Thump. Whack. Thump. Whack. 

Those all-to-familiar noises would start downstairs around 6 a.m. and go on most of the day until their son, Jack Mahoney, would stop around 10 p.m. 

Thump. Whack. Thump. Whack.

That was the sound of Mahoney, standing atop a narrow hallway, humming a foam ball at a hot pink square of duct tape on the front door. First, it was a soft baseball, next a tennis ball and it soon developed into a NERF ball.

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“Bless our parents because our front door was destroyed,” said Shea, Mahoney’s older sister. “Jack would get a tape measurer and measure how many feet he had to be away from our front door and he would have to throw a certain amount of strikes in this hot-pink duct tape strike zone on our front door.” 

It started young. Mahoney was around four years old when he first asked Tim, “Dad you got any duct tape?” And it continued until the day Mahoney departed his home in the Chicago suburb to begin his freshman year at South Carolina. 

It’s a path that hasn’t gone exactly to plan so far, a freshman year cut short due to Tommy John surgery that left him on the shelf and off the mound in 2022. 

But that changes Sunday afternoon. 

Because at 1:30 p.m. Mahoney will take the mound 656 days after tearing his UCL,  the culmination of almost three years of adversity leading him to this moment on the Founders Park rubber. 

A competitor from birth

Tim had the privilege of coaching Mahoney through most of little league baseball and still remembers the moment to this day. 

Mahoney, who was around nine at the time, was playing up a few divisions in large part because the older kids were providing much more competition than those his own age. 

But, despite Mahoney’s undeniable talent, he still never hit a home run at that point. Tim thought that changed in an instant. Playing at South End Park in Dundee, Illinois, Mahoney connected with the bases loaded. 

The ball sliced through the air, inching closer to that ever-elusive home run by the second.

That was until it hit the top of the fence and back into the field of play. Two runs hustled home and Mahoney ended up on second. He turned back to his father in the dugout, bawling. 

“We’re like, ‘That’s a double. You just scored two,”’ Shannon said.

But Mahoney didn’t care. He wanted to be the best. And a home run was better than a double.

To know that story is to know the fierce competitor Mahoney is and exactly why he was on the mound May 5, 2021.

‘He’s always going to choose to compete’

Tim had just made to Founders Park. 

Work and 4 p.m. first pitches don’t mix well, and he arrived just in time to watch Mahoney’s first few pitches standing by the flagpole in center field. It’s there he noticed something was up.

“He threw two balls in a row,” Tim said. “And I’m like, ‘That’s not working.’ And it wasn’t going anywhere he wanted it to go. That’s how I knew.”

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For Mahoney himself, he experienced that memory almost the same, albeit a few hundred feet away.

He felt it from the first moment he stepped on the mound against North Florida. But he didn’t care. Mahoney’s goal was to go out and lead his team to a win, regardless of how he was feeling. 

“It’s either compete today or not compete today,” Tim said. “And he’s always going to choose to compete.”

But when his typically mid-90s fastball registered 90 on the in-stadium radar gun, he knew his pitches were numbered. 

“North Florida I came out and was warming up thinking, ‘I don’t know if I can get this ball to home plate right now,’” Mahoney said. “I remember (catcher) Colin Burgess came out to talk to me and he’s like, ‘Something’s off.’ I knew something was up. Walking off the mound, I knew it.”

Mahoney lasted just two-thirds of an inning, throwing 23 pitches and allowing two runs on three hits with a walk. His last trot off the mound the final one of what was a Freshman All-American season. 

The Mahoneys field a call from the dugout, a cautious optimism the news wouldn’t be worst-case. Two days later, an MRI confirmed it was a torn ligament and Mahoney’s season was over.

A year that had Mahoney poised to be a key piece of a regional team and pitch that summer the Cape Cod League ended in heartbreak. 

“I come in, work my butt off to get in the best spot I can to impact the team. I get to that spot and the rug gets pulled out from under me,” Mahoney said. “Then last year, having to sit and watch and really be the best teammate I can be for these guys knowing my time was going to come sooner rather than later.”

Sooner rather than later comes Sunday, something that hasn’t been building for the last 21 months. It’s been four years in the making.

Mahoney’s journey to South Carolina

Mike Manno remembers when he got the job at St. Viator. One of the first people he heard about was an up-and-coming freshman named Jack, who had all the tools to develop into a good player. 

So, after talking to him and his family, Manno decided to take this wide-eyed freshman, try him out on varsity and see what he was working with. 

It didn’t take long. 

On a spring trip to Arizona, a 14-year-old Mahoney made his presence known quickly.

“Here’s a 14-year-old kid hitting sixth or seventh in our lineup. He was facing a senior kid who was college-bound and sitting 88 or 89,” Manno said. “(Mahoney) hit a ball that probably went 450 feet. He hit a grand slam in one of his first at-bats…That was one of the first occasions I knew we had a special kid on our hands at St. Viator.”  

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Mahoney–who played that year learning from senior and future Chicago Bear Cole Kemet–would develop into a Division I player. In October of his sophomore year, he committed to Mark Kingston and the Gamecocks. 

That didn’t stop him, though, from being a three-sport star at St. Viator. By his junior season, he was the Lions’ starting quarterback. He also served as a pitcher and shortstop for the baseball team and a guard on the hardwood. 

Mahoney would bounce from workout to workout, practice to practice. Summers were tricky balancing travel baseball and football, but lunches and free periods in the football coach’s office breaking down defenses and formations lessened the learning curve. 

That continued for four years, as Mahoney turned into one of the best baseball prospects in the country. It would have been easy as MLB teams and colleges began showing interest to scrap the other two and focus on what he’d be doing in college. 

But that’s not Mahoney. He’s loyal to those loyal to him, and he left a three-sport star.

“He might have entertained it for a minute but it was never a thought. Whatever team he’s playing on, those are his boys. He’s going to give you 1,000 percent,” Shannon said. “Even what he wrote in his goodbye at the end of St. Viator, he said he wouldn’t trade one minute to be your quarterback to be a Lion. there was nothing he could change about that.”

But that doesn’t mean playing three sports didn’t come with its fair share of challenges.

The first bump in the road

There’s a photo of Mahoney hanging behind David Archibald’s desk. 

Archibald, the head football coach at St. Viator, coached Mahoney in high school and had him as the Lions’ starting quarterback for multiple seasons. 

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The photo, a dual shot of Mahoney throwing the ball beside one of him running, dots a white cinderblock wall and serves as a core memory for Archibald. 

It reminds him of a Homecoming game in 2019 where Mahoney helped his team survive a late comeback and secure a 28-21 overtime win. In the aftermath, it was Mahoney finding Archibald to celebrate the victory. 

“One of my best memories is just a giant, joyful hug from Jack after that game, Archibald said.

Two games later, a bump in the road hit. It was almost like a movie. With rain coming down, Mahoney was at the end of a 12-yard scramble. He could have gone out of bounds earlier, but that wasn’t in Mahoney’s DNA. That wasn’t going to help his team win. Those extra yards would. 

Seconds later he found himself airborne, helicoptering through the air and landing on his ankle. Adrenaline pumping, Mahoney popped back up only to crumple soon after.

His ankle was injured and his senior football season was over. 

Mahoney, despite not playing in the final three games of the year, still won all-conference honors. 

His first comeback

Rehabbing and preparing to return is nothing new for Mahoney. His senior football season was over, but there was still a senior basketball and baseball season.

And–despite already having signed to play baseball at South Carolina and coming off an ankle injury–he wasn’t going to miss basketball season.

“He could have easily called and said, ‘Coach, you know, baseball’s kind of my thing,”’ said Quin Hayes, Mahoney’s high school basketball coach. “That didn’t cross his mind. That shows he’s all in on everything he did.”

While football and baseball were places he got to shine, the court was one place where he got to do what he loved: the dirty work.

He was the star quarterback and elite two-way player in baseball, but on the basketball court–full of future Division I players–Mahoney got to play his role.

“He was more of a role player. He’ll take your charge, he’ll do the dirty work,” Tim said. “He didn’t need to score. He didn’t care. That was probably my favorite thing to watch.” 

But, like football, Mahoney didn’t get to see his basketball or baseball seasons finish. The COVID-19 pandemic ended each prematurely, sending Mahoney off to South Carolina without the gift of finality. 

“The only time in history at St. Viator we were the only team in history to not end the season with a loss,” Hayes said. “Jack was a huge reason why we were still playing.”

After another tough blow, it would have been easy for Mahoney to slip into a funk. But–like how he approaches everything in his life–Mahoney found the silver linings in everything.

‘Where there is a Jack there is a Zepp’

Archibald still laughs about his sideline conversations with Mahoney to this day. 

He is known by everyone he meets as a fierce competitor and someone who will do anything and everything to will his team to win. But, even in the heat of the moment, he still remembered what sports were about.

“He would give himself to the very last drop,” Archibald said. “But he’d come off the field with his hilarious story like, ‘Coach when they tackled me by the other team’s student section they were all screaming my name.’ Then we’d laugh about it. It was just that intensity but we could laugh about what we’re doing.”

Even with the bullets flying, Mahoney could still find the silver lining and a moment of levity in the process. 

“Jack is Jack. I’ve watched his maturation process over the last six or seven years. But he hasn’t changed as a person in terms of funny, loving, just an all-around unbelievable person,” Manno said. “If I had a daughter, that’s a kid you want your daughter to date.”

He found the silver lining when COVID hit and he reckoned with his senior seasons behind cut short. It’s what he would have to do as he prepared for the longest 16 months of his life recovering from Tommy John surgery. 

Getting through the pandemic was easier. Mahoney spent that stretch working out, preparing for his freshman season at South Carolina. When he wasn’t doing that, it wasn’t out of the norm to find Mahoney on a golf course enjoying some fresh air.

Coming off surgery was a little different. 

“You can’t golf when you got a new elbow,” Mahoney said, matter-of-factly.

That’s where Zepplin comes in. 

A mammoth of a German Shepard, Mahoney picked up his dog–named after the legendary rock band–a week after being carved up. Since then, they’ve been inseparable. 

“Where there is a Jack there is a Zepp,” Shea said.

The two do everything together, and Zepp–as she’s referred to by the family–even has her own custom 23 jersey, the same number as her dad. 

And she’s been the friend and companion Mahoney needed as he inches closer to getting out of his own proverbial doghouse. 

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“She’s my best friend,” Mahoney said. “Dogs are the best. And Zepp, weirdly enough, has been a huge support system for me as weird as it sounds.”

But the rehab process is tough, and it’s full of ups and downs. Mahoney’s journey was no different. It took him over a year to throw in a live setting when he finally threw in a fall intrasquad scrimmage.

A pitcher who spent four years of high school playing three sports religiously was relegated to a strict throwing program with seemingly no end in sight. 

“It’s easier to look back now and think it’s one of the bigger blessings I’ve had. When you wake up from surgery and your arm is in a cast and you see the stitching and the swelling you’re thinking, ‘I might not throw a baseball ever again,” Mahoney said. “As hard as it was, I wouldn’t change those two years for anything.”

Mahoney found solace in a few things, Zepp being one of them, but watching old high school basketball film is another. 

“He would put replays of some of his high school basketball games on. Hayes would be yelling, ‘Jackie! You have one job!’ His job was to take a charge and get open. There were a couple of games where he had three threes or four threes,” Shannon said. 

“He’s hitting them on the outside and guys who are playing Division I basketball right now are like, ‘There it is!’ He lives for those moments. He lives for those moments.”

Mahoney watched, yearning for his next chance to compete. That finally comes Sunday.

The triumphant return

The Mahoneys–Tim, Shannon and Shea–stand together along the first base side of Founders Park, huddled and talking about Mahoney next to a line of concession stand patrons and the mustard station. 

It’s Opening Day, 30 minutes before first pitch and roughly 46 hours away from Mahoney’s long-awaited return. As the three sit and ponder what that moment will be like from their seats behind the dugout, it’s hard to even put it into words.

“Thankful,” Tim said, a lump forming in his throat and tears welling in his eyes. 

Mahoney is in the same boat, having visualized that moment where 2001 slowly fades into his warm-up music and he makes his triumphant return back to the same mound he left almost two years ago. 

“I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about it every day. I’ve had a lot of time to think over the past two years,” he said. “Ever since I got my arm cut open I’ve thought about that moment, stepping on the rubber again,” he said. “When I’m out there for the first time again I’m definitely going to look around for a moment and take it all in. It’s all I’ve been thinking about.” 

Sunday, he won’t be throwing in an empty hallway that didn’t even stretch the 60 feet, six inches of a standard mound. There won’t be any thumps of a ball hitting a hot pink square of duct tape or a whack of the ball returning to his glove seconds later.

There will be a catcher and thousands of fans watching. He’s come a long way since he was a young kid doing that in the Chicago suburbs. But it’s still the same Mahoney. 

The same competitor and relentless worker–who stayed the same Mahoney through everything–is back and better than ever in 2023. 

“If he didn’t have to pay for damages at the boys’ house (in Columbia),” Shea said of the pink strike zone, “he’d probably have it there too.” 

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