Joe Burrow is the man on the lips of every football fan in Cincinnati. The quarterback who has set and holds various franchise records after being drafted first overall in the 2020 NFL Draft is set to play in the playoffs and fans are hopeful that he can guide his team to the Super Bowl after helping them clinch the AFC North division title for the first time since 2015. Despite being relatively young, Burrow doesn’t appear to be fazed by it all. He has a cool head that many believe is a result of him being the son of a former player and retired coach in the sport, Jim Burrow.
Jim Burrow Had A Career In American Football That Span 40 Years
Jim Burrow was born in 1953 in Hampton, Virginia. He celebrates his birthday every day on the 29th of November. From a very young age, Jim was a very big fan of the sport. He would go on to play it in high school at Amory before enrolling at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he continued to play his favorite sport for the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team as a defensive back.
Like every other college athlete, Jim dreamed of one day playing in the NFL. His dreams would later come through as he was selected in the 1976 NFL Draft. The Green Bay Packers drafted the player in the eight-round and he would go on to play for the team for that season. Unfortunately, Jim Burrow’s relationship with the Packers and the NFL as a whole didn’t last longer than one year as he was forced to go to the Canadian Football League (CFL) to seek employment in the following year.
Now in the CFL, Jim found a home with the Montreal Alouettes. He spent about four years with the team before switching allegiance to the Calgary Stampeders in 1980. After a year with the outfit, he played for the Ottawa Rough Riders in 1981 before calling time on his playing career and switching to coaching.
He Served As A Coach In Various College Programs and One High School
In 1981, the same year he called time on his playing career, Joe Burrow’s dad took up the position of Tight End’s Coach at Washington State. He impressed in the role as so was moved to Defensive Backs coach. From 1982 to 1986, Jim remained in the position until he left to join the program at Iowa State where he served in the same role. In 199, Jim was promoted to Co-defensive Coordinator but he didn’t last more than a year in the position before he was again in search of another job.
To the surprise of many, Jim Burrow stepped down from college football to high school football as he became the Assistant Coach at Ames High School in Iowa. After three years as an assistant, he was named Head Coach in 1999. He left the position the following year and took a year’s break before returning to his alma mater to take up a Graduate Assistant role on the Cornhuskers football team.
In 2003, the well-traveled football coach joined the North Dakota State as Defensive Coordinator. Two years later, he was at Ohio University in the same role. His time at Ohio would prove to be his longest coaching stint as he was with the team from 2005 to 2018 when he retired. He first served as Defensive Coordinator before being named Associate Head Coach & Defensive Coordinator in 2017.
Joe Was Inspired To Play The Sport By His Father
It is well documented that Joe Burrow comes from a family that has a long history in sports. His grandmother and grandfather were basketball (high school and college) players, his father was an American football player and coach, his uncle John Burrow played the sport at the college level, and his two older brothers did so as well. But despite this, there was one particular incident that inspired the quarterback to play sports.
In 2002, when he was about six years old, he attended that year’s Rose Bowl, a game that featured the Miami Hurricanes and the Nebraska Cornhuskers – the team his father served as an assistant coach on. While his father’s team lost the game, Joe got a taste for the sport and would soon later begin playing in youth football leagues. He reportedly played defensive roles as his father and brothers did but later switched to quarterback after one of his teams had no one else to play in the position. This marked the beginning of Jim’s son’s journey to the NFL.
Jim Burrow’s Son Is Unarguably The Most Successful Athlete In His Family
Joe Burrow began showing he would surpass the achievements of all the members of his family in college. His father Jim admitted that he quit his coaching job in 2018 so that he could be able to attend all of his son’s games the following year.
Joe first attended Ohio State before transferring to Louisiana State University (LSU) in 2018 when it was clear that he would not get the starting quarterback role. With a hunger to succeed at LSU, Joe was unplayable throughout his first year of eligibility for the team. In 2019, he kept up his performance and was able to guide his team to the 2020 College Football Playoff National Championship. He also won the Heisman Trophy and took home other accolades like the Maxwell Award, Walter Camp Award, Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, Davey O’Brien Award, Lombardi Award, and Manning Award.
These achievements were a clear indication that Burrow was destined for greatness and so the Cincinnati Bengals selected him with the first overall pick. The quarterback has transitioned well to professional football, setting various records along the way and guiding his team to a level of success that had evaded them for so long.
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