4 months after being shot, UVA’s Mike Hollins is back on the football field. But he’s taking the mental recovery ‘day by day.’

Virginia running back Mike Hollins already is back in uniform for the Cavaliers in spring practice, just four months after surviving a shooting on campus.

His rapid recovery from being shot is breathtaking, especially considering doctors told him it would be almost six months before he could even put on his own socks.

“They gave me four to six months before I could even lift or lift anything really,” Hollins told reporters this week in Charlottesville. “But the second day, I got up and went to the restroom like it was normal. The nurse came in and was like, ‘You’re out of the bed — why are you walking around?’ She was happy but kind of cautious about it and then the doctors came back and he told me, ‘Day by day, you’re looking better and better. So if you get out at the end of the week then we’ll look to cut down your time to maybe New Year.’ …so they dropped months within days.”

Hollins was injured in a shooting in November in which UVA football players Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry were killed by a fellow student after returning to campus from a class trip.

Police arrested Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., a UVA student and former walk-on for the Cavaliers’ football team, and charged him in the shooting. He faces three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of using a handgun in the commission of a felony. He is scheduled to appear in court next month for preliminary hearings.

Hollins said his return to campus was overwhelming at first, but now he has settled back in and has received enormous support.

“Being around my teammates, my coaches and you know, from top to bottom, the support has been amazing,” Hollis said. “From [athletic director Carla Williams],to the janitors, to the people in the dining hall, they’re all showing great support. I just feel really blessed to be back on Grounds and to be able to continue my dream and my former teammates’ dream.”

The physical recovery came naturally for Hollins, but the mental recovery has been more difficult. He said there’s simply no playbook to follow when it comes to trying to balance taking care of himself but also preparing for football.

“The physical part was by far the easiest of this whole experience,” Hollins said. “Recovering is something I’ve been doing since I was five years old playing PeeWee football. So it’s something that you don’t have to think about, it’s something the body naturally does. But the mental aspect of mental recovery is brand-new to me. It’s something that I had to learn day by day. I’m still learning day by day.”

After having stitches and staples put in his abdomen following surgery, he had to essentially relearn how to use his core and build back the muscles around it. Hollins also added that he had troubles with digestion.

Hollins said he doesn’t have any physical pain, rather he is just focusing on getting back to being comfortable with full contact practices.

“I’m just blessed to be back here running and be back blessed enough to put my helmet on,” Hollins said. “So just not trying to rush anything, taking it day by day. Being honest with the trainer’s being, honest with the coaches on how I’m feeling because they know and I know my mind is right —and I will jump on the field at any time — but my body has to be right and I have to listen to my body.”

Though the road to recovering fully from a mental aspect may be long for Hollins, the prospect of being to suit up for Virginia again has made things a bit easier.

“I think recovery, mentally, would be a lot different if I wasn’t able to play football again,” Hollins said. “If I wasn’t able to join my teammates again on the field, or strap my helmet up again I do believe mentally recovering will be a lot more tedious and I would have to find new ways to cope and to just recover because getting out here on the field it’s just freedom for me.”

Hollins graduated in December and is set to graduate again this December with a master’s degree. He said he thought about transferring and looking for a new place to reestablish himself, but in the end he decided “sweeping things under the rug” wasn’t the best way to recover.

“I think the best place for me to move forward, not move on but move forward with and carry everything is from Charlottesville, with the people who I shared that experience with,” Hollins said. “I know no one across the country feels the way we feel here in the facility. No one in the country knows how I feel about the situation besides the people here in this facility. And I got an uneasy feeling when I thought about leaving because I could have left and what if I didn’t have the same support because they didn’t go through the experience with me.”

Hollins and the rest of the Cavaliers will continue spring practice until the spring game on April 15.