Lufkin’s Lane to Graduate Texas A&M University
As a running back throughout his football career, Jorvorskie Lane certainly racked up a lot of yardage. He ran for nearly 4,000 yards as a Lufkin Panther, and he bulled his way to 2,090 yards and a school-record 49 touchdowns for the Texas A&M University Aggies. Eventually, he’d use his yardage-gaining skills in the NFL, where he played for the Miami Dolphins and Tampa Bay Buccaneers before a serious injury ended his career.
As impressive as those numbers are, the most important few yards of his life didn’t occur on a football field.
They’ll take place this Friday morning, when Lane will walk across the graduation stage at Texas A&M University’s Commencement ceremony.
Lane spent four years with the Aggie football team, leaving in 2008 to pursue his goal of playing professional football. Since his last day on the A&M campus, Lane has held onto his dream of graduating college.
On Tuesday morning, Lane completed his last final exam: A Math for Business class at Angelina College (Lane’s third class at AC), with AC instructor George Reed accommodating Lane’s upcoming graduation schedule. Reed, Lane says, was yet another boost up the ladder for a young man who never thought college was in his future unless he was carrying a ball.
Just like when Lane was using some help up front to find his way to paydirt on a football field, the big back learned to accept assistance on his way to trading shoulder pads and a helmet for a cap and gown.
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Lane’s early struggles as a learner are well-documented. He’s even become a face for the Read 180 program, to which he was introduced at Lufkin High School through teacher Betty Lewing. Lane remembers the early days of trying to overcome his learning issues.
“Man, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately,” Lane said. “I go back to the second grade when I was told I had a learning disability. I had no clue about any of it. I didn’t understand what dyslexia was. I just thought I wasn’t very smart.”
However, Lane says, he ran into a gauntlet of teachers who saw so much more than his test results offered. He encountered numerous educators who saw through the fog of what others deemed a disability. He mentions Mrs. Handy at Garrett Elementary. Cindy Nerren at Brandon Elementary. Cathy Friesen. Mrs. Buchanan, his 7th grade science teacher.
“It all goes back to the teachers I had,” Lane says. “People like Mrs. Jones in Content Mastery. She helped me get through high school. I’m not going to say it was easy, but I made it to Texas A&M University, so obviously, my college dream was possible. I took the same approach to life. That’s how I got involved with Read 180. I was OK with being what some people considered a great athlete and also being dyslexic.
“I looked at it as a superpower. Yes, I’m just different. Two plus two is four, but there are more ways to get to four than just adding two plus two.”
As for his teachers, including his instructors at Angelina College, Lane has nothing but praise and admiration.
“There were so many, and I don’t even remember all their first names,” Lane laughs. “When you’re a student, you don’t even realize teachers actually have first names.”
Those teachers, Lane says, saw him as more than an athlete.
“They saw my desires, and they saw some intelligence in me others didn’t see,” Lane says. “They saw my potential as a student. They were the ones who put the ‘student’ before the ‘athlete.’ I was drawn to that, and they made me want to make them proud.”
Not until his time with Friesen did Lane ever even consider college as an option.
“I honestly didn’t know much about college at all,” Lane admits. “I never thought it was in my future until Mrs. Friesen told me I’d have an opportunity to go to college based on my athletic ability. At that time, I was in the fourth grade. That was the first time I had the college bug planted inside my head.
“I’d go home thinking about the possibilities,” Lane says. “I’d heard of Earl Campbell before because of my grandfather, but I didn’t know he went to the University of Texas until Mrs. Friesen told me. All those teachers had me believing in myself. Coach Scott Green, Mrs. Jones, Coach Todd Quick, Coach John Outlaw, Mr. Smart – there were so many pieces to this puzzle I’m putting together today.”
Like so many other youngsters, Lane thought the ultimate goal was professional football. Make it there, he thought, and you’re set for life. It took a massive injury to force him to confront reality.
“As a kid, we think of nothing but pro sports: football, football, football,” Lane says. “We don’t understand there’s going to be a life after football at some point. You put in so much time and effort into your chosen sport, you don’t think past the next play.
“But I suffered an injury that ended everything for me. I had to start looking at life after football. I knew I couldn’t do those physical things any more. I knew I could have gone into the oil field, and I could have done some more work in hard labor, but God didn’t have that in my plans. I was forced to go back and finish my degree. Most young athletes seem to put all their eggs in one basket as far as their futures go, and it showed me it’s not the way to handle your own life.”
So he kept grinding, class after class, the same way he’d ground out yard after yard. In the summer of 2024, he says, he waited just a little too long to register for his last set of classes at A&M. His then-girlfriend Ana Terrazas works as a Specialist in Angelina College’s Human Resources Division. She reached out to some of her colleagues for help.
“Ana reached out to Casey Gerard (AC’s Assistant Director of Admissions and Recruitment), and Mrs. Gerard was all over it,” Lane laughs. “The next morning, I was sitting in front of Remona Boodoo Frye (Student Services), and she helped me register for the classes I needed.
“Every bit of this took place after hours, with those people going out of their way to help me. Man, who does that?”
Lane would finish his degree requirements by taking three classes on the Angelina College campus and three on-line courses with Texas A&M University. On Friday, he’ll receive his degree in Agriculture and Life Sciences.
“Honestly, it’s just surreal,” Lane says. “When you go through life as an athlete, you hear the stories and the misconceptions of athletes being ‘dumb.’ Everything is handed to us, we’re spoiled, we’re this and that. And sometimes it’s true.
“But I’ve had to work for everything given to me. At the end of the day, it did become personal. I understand where I come from, and my athletic ability only took me so far. I had to do this for me. If, God forbid, something happens to me again, they can never take my degree from me. It’s something I accomplished for myself.”
As if the past week couldn’t get any better, Lane proposed to Ana on Monday. She’s no longer his girlfriend. She’s now his fiancé.
“Ana wanted me focused on graduating,” Lane says. “She’s such a gift. I told her I’m going to show her something completely different. She doesn’t really know that much about the football side of me, and how many connections I’ve formed all around the world. I just needed a partner to help me navigate it, and she’s proven so much as far as who she is and what she can do.
“We’ve got a spiritual connection that’s unbelievable. We said from the beginning the only way we were going to make it was to put God in the middle of everything in our relationship. She’s the ultimate teammate.”
Once he finishes his walk across the graduation stage, Lane plans to use his experiences to help others achieve their goals in the same way he received support. He’s already receiving requests to address young people who are in the same situation he faced all those years ago.
“What I’ve done over the years is to use the game of football and the team function to help me build my own life,” Lane says. “I would tell a younger version of me to stay grounded, and to understand there really is a problem, but it’s not a reason to get frustrated or down on yourself. You’re not slow. You’re just different, and you learn in different ways. I’ve learned it’s very possible Albert Einstein was also dyslexic.
“Once I put all that information in my mind, I didn’t feel different,” Lane says. “I felt like a superhero, with a different kind of superpower.”
Gary Stallard’s email address is gstallard@angelina.edu.
