Jurevicius Faces the Toughest of Tests
Fathers don’t leave. That’s what Joe Jurevicius was taught.
He remembers the time, the place, even the tone of voice, filling his head some 20 years ago on a back porch in Cleveland.
“My dad had a talk with me that I still remember exactly, everything about it,” Jurevicius recalls. “I was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. I was sitting on our green porch. My dad told me, ‘Blood is thicker than water.’ ”
The words momentarily soften the sharp edges of his face, good memories, important memories, guilty memories.
Joe Jurevicius is telling this story to dozens of reporters at the Super Bowl.
While his newborn son is 3,000 miles away, in a hospital intensive care unit, attached to a respirator.
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This year’s annual Super Bowl heart-tugger arrived Wednesday, right on schedule, much to the delight of notebooks and cameras desperate to capture a hero and a happy ending.
But then Joe Jurevicius showed up, and he wasn’t smiling.
“For one, I feel bad that I’m leaving my family,” he said.
Prompted for inspiration, he wasn’t brimming.
“When you picture a baby, you picture them being held and tickled,” he said. “Having tubes in him and monitors on him, that’s a very tough thing to take.”
Asked for an ending, he couldn’t give one.
“If something bad happens, I’ll fly home,” he said. “And if someone questions me, shame on them.”
Shame on us, already, for thinking that every Super Bowl sob story is a simple one.
Man has problem. Man overcomes problem. Come Sunday, man will use lessons from problem to knock the bejabbers out of other men.
It’s all so formulaic, so expected, that when a guy like Joe Jurevicius appears, you put down your pencil and listen and wonder.
This is not just about a football player, it’s about a parent, every parent, and the questions that torment them daily.
Nine days ago, Meagan Jurevicius, the wife of this Tampa Bay Buccaneer wide receiver, gave birth to their first child, Michael William.
He was a bit premature, and very sick with an undisclosed illness, and Jurevicius immediately left the team to stay by his side.
After missing a week of practice, Jurevicius was convinced by family members to attend last weekend’s NFC championship game at Philadelphia.
Once there, he had a 71-yard catch that led to the Buccaneers’ first and key touchdown. For this, he was hailed as a star. But he was a troubled star.
After the game he immediately returned to his family, spent most of two days there, missed the first two media days this week, then showed up Wednesday morning for the first practice.
While still wondering if this was the right thing to do.
“I feel bad that I am leaving my family,” he said.
He has been allowed to hold his child only once, last week. When he returned after Sunday’s victory and asked to hold him again, the request was denied.
He slept in a hospital bed for a week while waiting for his son to open his eyes. When his plane landed here Tuesday night, there was a message from his wife. The eyes had opened. And he had missed it.
“Now I have to get him to say ‘Dad’ before ‘Mom,’ ” he said. “She won the eyes battle, but I’ll win the ‘Dad’ battle.”
It was sort of a joke, but he still wasn’t smiling.
Joe Jurevicius says football is an escape, but this week he is clearly captive to the demons that all parents face.
When is it appropriate to miss work to be with your sick child? What is the message if you leave him? Are you jeopardizing your family’s future if you stay? What would you do?
Remember when Phil Mickelson expectantly carried a pager at the U.S. Open so his wife could inform if she went into labor?
Jurevicius has a cell phone that he prays will not ring.
Remember when David Williams, lineman for the then-Houston Oilers, was criticized for missing a game because of the birth of his child?
Nobody would rip Jurevicius for not being here, and even workaholic Coach Jon Gruden would allow him to leave.
Yet here he is, helmet off, hair matted, eyes glazed, trying to figure out this parenting gig, this toughest job of all.
“Lots of times in pro football, you do not see the human side,” Jurevicius said. “Fans out there are looking for something to connect to. Maybe some good will come out of this from that.”
Jurevicius said he is here at the Super Bowl not for himself, but everyone who has been counting on him.
To those who think he might be acting selfish, he says he has never been more unselfish in his life.
“What I do for a living propels my family,” he said. “It keeps them strong. It keeps them going. They need to see me do this. That’s the position I’m in.”
On the program, the position will say wide receiver.
In reality, the position is frightened father.
“I have this uncontrollable rage, and I don’t know any better way to vent my frustration than on a football field,” he said. “It’s better than running down a hospital hallway.”
Jurevicius can’t wait for the rage to die, for the day several years from now when he can sit at his toddler son’s bedside and tell him the story of his birth.
“I’ll tell him how special he is, what an inspiration he is,” Jurevicius said. “It will be a good story.”
Not a pretty story, but a good story.
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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.
