Jason and Travis Kelce: an epic family affair at the heart of the Super Bowl | Super Bowl LVII

The breakout star of Super Bowl week is not going to play on Sunday. Donna Kelce will as an alternative watch from the commissioner’s field at State Farm Stadium as her sons, Jason and Travis, grow to be the primary brothers ever to compete in opposition to each other within the NFL’s title recreation.

“It’s going to be the most effective day ever,” she informed them on their podcast, New Heights. “Aside from once you have been born, when each you guys have been born, it may possibly’t get any higher.”

The episode was launched on Saturday, two days earlier than she stunned them at Tremendous Bowl Opening Night time, the hybrid press conference-jamboree that kicks this week off yearly. Jason and Travis have been being interviewed in entrance of 1000’s of followers on a foremost stage on the Footprint Heart when Donna emerged at hand them every a plastic container filled with selfmade chocolate chip cookies.

Since then she has been in all places, giving TV interviews and even popping up at NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s press convention to ask when he was going to seem on New Heights, all the time whereas carrying one in every of her customized half-and-half tops that mix the colors of Jason’s Philadelphia Eagles with Travis’s Kansas Metropolis Chiefs. A petition to have her make the ceremonial coin toss on Sunday attracted more than 180,000 signatures.

Donna has resisted that concept, saying she doesn’t need to be a distraction. Her sons insist she might by no means be. They are going to all the time be her youngsters, however Jason and Travis are hardly younger naïfs on this stage. Every of them has received a Tremendous Bowl earlier than, and every is as a revered chief on their workforce.

Jason, the older brother, is a five-time All-Professional heart who has began for the Eagles ever since he was drafted again in 2011. Travis, two years his junior, is a decent finish with seven consecutive 1,000-yard receiving seasons, making a case to be remembered as the most effective ever to play at his place.

Neither is perhaps right here with out the opposite. Their childhood, as they inform it, was one in every of fixed competitors, whether or not that was wrestling and throwing lacrosse balls throughout the lounge or going one-on-one on the basketball court docket. There are tales in regards to the time Jason power-bombed Travis so onerous into the couch that it went via the hardwood ground, and when Travis threw Jason down so violently within the kitchen that the range got here off its hinges.

At Opening Night time, Travis described it as “pleasurable chaos”, recalling “a whole lot of enjoyable, a whole lot of damaged home windows, a whole lot of shattered issues round the home that my mother and father needed to take care of.” Donna, in her look on the podcast, mentioned the one factor they by no means smashed was the TV.

The 2 boys would develop as much as play soccer collectively on the College of Cincinnati. Jason was a walk-on working again who coaches transformed to play on the offensive line. His work ethic and more and more dominant performances helped persuade coaches to supply Travis a scholarship two years later. The youthful Kelce was a extra eye-catching athlete: taller with uncommon fluidity to his actions, but additionally wanted to be transformed from quarterback to tight finish.

When Travis was suspended by the workforce after testing optimistic for marijuana in 2010, Jason moved him into his personal bed room to regulate him and ensure he acquired again on monitor. He stored his brother motivated with one-on-one exercises and vouched for him with coaches, persuading them to reinstate Travis the next yr.

“I wasn’t paying lease, he was serving to me with meals, so I used to be actually residing off him for fairly some time down there and he was my lifeline,” mentioned Travis this week. “I used to be attempting to do the precise issues, and he went into the coaches’ workplace and talked to quite a few coaches and quite a few individuals within the Cincinnati workers to attempt to get me one other probability to be on the workforce.

“I’m perpetually in debt to this man for placing his identify, our identify, placing his honor on the road to get me one other probability. After I say I owe all of it to him, I actually do.”

Even the shirt Travis wears for Kansas Metropolis, No 87, was chosen as a nod to his brother’s yr of start. But it has been onerous to keep up the closeness they as soon as had since turning professional. NFL seasons are busy, and there are a thousand miles between Philadelphia and Kansas Metropolis. The motivation to start out the New Heights podcast final August got here partially from wanting an excuse to talk to one another extra.

“What this did was gave us a scheduled two-to-three-hour window the place we now have to speak to one another and we now have to speak about what we’re going via, all through the week and all through the video games,” mentioned Travis on Opening Night time. “It’s nearly been like remedy, man. It’s been cool to listen to what he’s going via and simply to have some enjoyable with my brother like we did again within the day.”

They have been anxious, at first, about how the present is perhaps obtained in the event that they or their groups had poor seasons. As a substitute, the other has come to go. There have been New Heights off the sphere, because the podcast went to the highest of the US sports podcast charts, and on it as they arrange this appointment with each other at Tremendous Bowl LVII.

There was a lot speak of their variations in Phoenix this week, Jason the extra reserved, pensive character and Travis the flamboyant showman, imitating the Rock and calling the mayor of Cincinnati a “jabroni” after the AFC title recreation. Donna reminded reporters that Jason, too, generally is a showman, dressing up in a Mummers outfit to deliver a memorable speech on the Eagles’ Tremendous Bowl celebration 5 years in the past.

Chiefs head coach Andy Reid is aware of each gamers nicely. He was nonetheless answerable for the Eagles once they drafted Jason in 2011, working with him for 2 years earlier than shifting to Kansas Metropolis. He acquired to know Travis in that point, too, and it was that first-hand connection that led to the Chiefs deciding on the youthful Kelce within the third spherical in 2013.

“They’re each, at coronary heart, very aggressive and compassionate,” mentioned Reid this week. “They care about individuals, and so they care about their recreation, their commerce.”

That they care about one another has been evident all week, simply as it’s on the podcast the place they talk about every little thing from childhood to the aliens that Travis insists reside on earth proper now, “both underwater or on Antarctica”. And so they care about their mother and father too, not simply Donna together with her cookies and half-and-half shirts but additionally their extra understated father, Ed.

Throughout his look on New Heights, Jason and Travis goaded him with questions on who he would cheer for many this Sunday. Ed refused to select however mentioned he would most likely go to the loser on the finish since “someone’s going to really feel fairly crummy. And I need to be with them initially.”

Travis teased that, no matter occurs, each mother and father might be losers on the finish of the night time, since one in every of their sons might be unhappy. “No,” insisted Ed. “Certainly one of you guys are gonna lose. I’ve already received, dude. I’m on the preferred podcast in sports activities with my sons. I’ve already fucking received. All the remainder of that is simply window dressing.”