CHICAGO — Chicago Bears running back Velus Jones Jr. cracked open the storybook Wednesday, and told Chicago media the tale of Crash the Ferret.
The year is 2019, and current Chicago Bears running back Velus Jones Jr. is a wide receiver at the University of Southern California.
After visiting a PetSmart on a West Coast road trip, Jones Jr. and his then-teammate, now Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr., made what many would consider a completely normal and rational decision by college-aged men.
They were going to get a ferret.
“Me and [Pittman] looked at each other, it was like, ‘we gonna get one.’ And I was like alright, bet,” Jones Jr. said. “So we actually got on Craigslist when we got back to campus, and we found a ferret breeder.
“It was the sketchiest thing ever.”
Jones Jr. said he didn’t have a car at the time so, Pittman picked him up in his Chevy Camaro and they took a journey to a south central Los Angeles alleyway.
When Jones Jr. and Pittman arrived, he said, “Me and Pitt looked at each other. I told him to keep the car running.”
As time ticked by, no one appeared, and Jones Jr. started to feel like the ferret breeder was taking too long. Then, one moment, a person popped their head out of the back door of a building in the alleyway, and disappeared just as quickly as they had appeared.
“I was like yeah, it’s about time to get up out of here,” Jones Jr. said, recalling the story. “But then he actually came out and he had a small ferret in his hand and I was like, okay, it’s legit.
“My heart was racing though. It could have been bad.”
$350 later, Jones Jr. and Pittman had a ferret, who they named Crash.
Jones Jr. said a part of the expenses covered Crash getting neutered, and having his scent glands removed so Crash wouldn’t smell too bad.
Once Jones Jr. got Crash back to his college apartment, he said he was “terrified” and that Crash “just kept biting” him, but he fell in love with having the ferret as a pet over time.
How does one raise a ferret in between playing college football, and maintaining a full-time college class schedule?
The answer is group parenting.
Chase McGrath, USC’s placekicker in 2019, and J.T. Daniels, a quarterback on USC’s roster at the time who would go on to transfer and start at the University of Georgia, played the rolls of step-dad and babysitter at times while Jones Jr. or Pittman were away from their furry, four-legged friend.
“[McGrath] watched him a lot. J.T. Daniels watched him a lot. But he didn’t like Chase for some reason,” Jones Jr. said. “And also, he bit Michael Pittman’s mom.”
When it came to Crash’s care, Jones Jr. and company did their research and found out that ferrets are related to weasels so, they based building Crash’s diet and habits off what they discovered.
“Sometimes we’d give him like a mouse or whatever,” Jones Jr. said. “So, I guess he did his little hunting, hunt the mouse down and stuff … kind of like Animal Planet.”
There were also opportunities for Jones Jr. to wrap Crash up in a pouch and take him to tutoring when he needed to work on his studies at USC.
Eventually though, tragedy struck for Jones Jr. and Crash the Ferret.
After Jones Jr. transferred to the University of Tennessee in 2020, he said he was at his grandmother’s house away from school when he got the news that Crash was paralyzed from the waist down, and he had to put Crash to sleep.
“It was sad, you know. I shed a tear, real men cry,” Jones Jr. said. “But yeah, he was paralyzed from the wait down and I tried to take him to a veterinarian, but I think they finessed me [because] there was no way they [could] help him at all.
“So, he’s buried at 303 Flats, right off by the river [is] his resting place. So, he’s a legend, for sure.”