An automobile accident on the way to an early-morning workout almost two years ago changed Joey Tanona’s football future, seemingly forever.
On Monday via Twitter/X, the once-promising Notre Dame interior offensive lineman let the college football world know he’s on the road to changing it back.
Medically retired from football for both the 2022 and 2023 season, his freshman and sophomore years at ND, the 6-foot-5, 284-pound former four-star prospect announced he was unretiring and entering the transfer portal to restart a college career that never got off the ground.
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“To everyone who has supported me, I am forever in your debt,” he tweeted. “To put it simply, the game of football is my entire life, the root of my soul. After some time of recovering and working to get back to being healthy, I have decided it’s time to play ball again.
“I’d like to announce that I’m entering the transfer portal, so I can relentlessly pursue my dreams.”
Tanona will have three years of eligibility remaining at his next school and a very good chance of being able to petition for a fourth via the NCAA if he eventually so chooses.
Medical retirements allow players to remain in school and on scholarship without that scholarship counting against the NCAA’s maximum of 85. To keep schools from parking players there and then unretiring them later, the reinstatement process is vigorous and sometimes easier with starting over elsewhere.
Linebacker David Adams in 2021 was the last Notre Dame football player to attempt to reverse the process. He entered the portal in spring semester of that year and attracted three Power 5 offers and more from Group of 5 schools and finished his degree work at ND.
But that summer, the litany of injuries that prompted him to medically retire in the first place convinced him to make it a permanent move instead of starting over somewhere else.
Tanona was an early enrollee in January of 2022 when his football trajectory altered. Then-offensive line coach Harry Hiestand in April of 2022 provided the media with some details from the accident.
Tanona’s mother had moved to South Bend for the 2022 spring semester, and his sister was driving him to an early morning workout at the Guglielmino Athletics Complex when a car slammed into the Tanonas’ car on the passenger side.
“Just really [a] freak thing,” Hiestand said. “Scary. Blessing that he’s just dealing with what he’s dealing with, that it wasn’t worse. It was a terrible accident. I saw a picture of the car.
“He was asleep and reclining, which was probably a good thing, because he body was limp. And a car ran a red light and hit right where he was sitting, pretty close.”
Tanona was initially determined to come back for the 2022 season, but on Aug. 5 of that year head coach Marcus Freeman announced the rerouting to a medical retirement.
“Mentally and physically was not in a place where he was ready to play football,” Freeman said at the time. “So he decided to medically retire.”
And now?
“Stay in the fight. Always stay in the fight,” Tanona tweeted. “Follow your heart and you can never do wrong.”
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