FINDING A FAMILY AFTER TRAGEDY COACH MAKES A HOME FOR HIS PLAYER

PETEY JONES' PARENTS AND BIG SISTER DIED IN THE SPAN OF FOUR YEARS. THEN RYAN HOLDREN AND HIS WIFE, CAITLIN DATES, STEPPED IN TO RAISE THE TEEN

- By WENDY GROSSMAN KANTOR and JOHNNY DODD

Not long after Ryan Holdren returned home one evening in March 2021 from his job at Cincinnati College Preparatory Academy, the school's secre- tary telephoned to tell him that one of their stu- dents was on TV. A fire had just destroyed the apart- ment where 14-year-old Petey Jones lived, killing his older sister Maronique, who had been caring for Jones after the deaths of his parents. With- out hesitation Holdren, then working as a middle school social studies teacher and assistant football coach, texted the ninth grader—whom he'd spent the past two years driving home each evening after practice—with a simple message. “Hey, I know you got a lot going on,” he wrote, “but if you ever need it, you’re always welcome to come stay with me.”

Several weeks later Jones, a football standout and honors student despite his string of personal tragedies, took Holdren up on his heartfelt offerand has been living with him and his wife, Caitlin Dates, ever since. “We just wanted to give him something consistent,” says Holdren, 35, who is now Jones’s legal guardian. “We wanted to provide him with a place where he felt safe, somewhere he could grow up.”