I had to leave my vacation early so my dad wouldn’t miss my brother Chris’s HS football game. You see, my family is obsessed with sport, and Chris is finally a Badger athlete with a possible future in it. He plays free safety for the best HS football program in the state. He has two older brothers who played football and tried playing college ball, but either due to injury or the army, neither got very far.

So the family has put our last hopes into Chris—especially our brother Troy.

Troy was born with amazing athletic ability, except for one fatal flaw—his height. Whether he stunted his growth drinking too much Dr. Pepper as a teenager, or whether karma caught up to him for practicing WWF moves on me as a kid, Troy never made it despite his potential. But, with everything in his power, he’s making sure Chris will.

For the past two years, Troy has been raising/farming/breeding Chris to become a D1 football player by literally monitoring every hour of Chris’s life. He transformed 1/2 of our garage into a home gym, even building a custom squat rack (Well, he didn’t personally build it. See Handyman post). Like clockwork, he calls Chris every 2 hours and tells him what to eat.

This behavior has gone to the extent where I believe Chris slightly fears Troy. For example, when my dad, Troy, and Chris were playing golf last summer, my dad asked the kid, “Hey, Chris! Wanna hot dog?” Without hesitation, Chris instinctually turned and looked at Troy for permission.

(I’m a actually little worried about the kid. Last week Chris came up to hang and relax in Park City. I came home to find him passed out on the couch—chocolate all over his face—and my secret stash of candy wrappers all over the floor. When I woke him, he didn’t know where he was.)

But Troy doesn’t stop there. Using various aliases, Troy comments on popular football blogs in order to hype up Chris for recruiters. In addition, Troy personally accompanies Chris last summer to football camps across the country. Even when his wife was due in one week to deliver their first child, Troy went with Chris to the UCLA camp. He also tried to skip his med school graduation for another camp, but his wife wouldn’t allow it.

I, on the other hand, personally attribute Chris’s athletic success to the year he and I lived together. About 3 years ago, Chris raced for the Park City Ski Team. To be closer to the mountain for training, he moved in with me (and my roommates!) in Park city. My roommates moved out–leaving just Chris and me. Chris wasn’t really used to maternal authority, as the first four kids in our family wore our actual mom out. So I was a substitute parent for the year. He didn’t like how I made him take the bus, and we had some pretty intense shouting matches over eating peas and carrots. Nevertheless, I fed Chris like a horse, and he subsequently put on 30 pounds that year—significantly increasing his strength and size right before high school.

Currently, Chris has two offers from BYU and Utah, with more expected to come after this year. Below is a highlight film from his games thus far this season. He’s number 7, and it shouldn’t surprise you to know that was Troy’s number as well.

**So if you want to date Jenny, it’s important to understand these family dynamics and their obsession with sport. Currently, about 90% of family conversations are  focused around Chris and his football career.