Jeanty played running back for the first time as a senior in high school. He described it as “a crossroads moment” allowing him to gain “that last big piece of confidence I needed.”
“I’ve had to take the long way sometimes. And what I’ve learned about ‘the long way’ is—it didn’t keep me from being great,” Jeanty said. “It just made it so when I got there, I’d be even greater.”
Ashton Jeanty Didn’t Take Football ‘Seriously’ Until Middle School
As an active kid, Jeanty played soccer and basketball. While he engaged in a pick-up game of football occasionally, it was more about his friends and having fun.
“Even when it wasn’t serious, though, I swear: No one could touch me,” Jeanty recalled. “You’d have these older kids out there, all trying to bring me down, doing whatever they could. And I’d just be making them look silly.”
After playing a year of rec football, Jeanty went out for the middle school team. As a sixth-grader, he was the only one in his class to make the team. Jeanty told of when his dad, a senior petty officer in the U.S. Navy, got stationed in Italy. Just when his love of football was taking root, his family needed to relocate to another country. Jeanty had to “pause football for a year.”
“When I had to move across the world and pause football for a year, my attitude was, ‘Well, alright—I can’t control that. So let’s take what I can control, and make the absolute best out of it,'” said Jeanty.
He learned quite a bit about himself that year in Italy. “You come to a new place, and it’s like you have a choice to make: Either open yourself up, or close yourself off,” he said. Jeanty chose the former—embracing the people, the food, and the culture.
The Jeantys moved back to the U.S. during Jeanty’s sophomore year of high school, and he was back playing football for Lone Star High School in Frisco, Texas. High school football in Texas is on a different level than anywhere else.
“All of a sudden, I was on a squad loaded up with great players. Not just future D1 guys, but future NFL guys,” said Jeanty. He stuck with it and continued to excel as an athlete in high school. He played college football for Boise State University, where he grew in his faith.
“This (Boise) community has helped me grow tremendously. It’s very welcoming. It’s not forceful; it’s not aggressive in any type of way,” said Jeanty. “It’s the way God would want it to be, and I could see—even before stepping foot on this campus—that God had his hands on this program.”
“I could see that Christianity was a big thing here and that guys were real big on their faith,” Jeanty said. “I learned to embrace that, and all the guys and people around the facility have embraced me.”
And, now, Jeanty’s headed to the NFL.
