"The neatest thing for my wife and I is the lives we're able to impact...I hope that legacy lasts long after football is gone."
There were, in fact, tranquil days.
For the three Witten brothers, family life was once enjoyable. Growing up in Vienna, Va., a bustling suburb of Washington, D.C., their childhoods were filled with rambunctiousness and athletics. Their father, Ed, was a huge sports fan, so he signed up Ryan, Shawn and Jason for two football leagues — a city league in Vienna and a Fairfax County league. He put them in two basketball leagues, too. He taught the boys to run, throw, catch and dribble.
It was a warm slice of Americana.
“There were a lot of positives,” says Shawn, the middle brother. “He was involved in our lives.”
But, over time, the Hallmark moments were less and less frequent. Ed and his wife, Kim, hit financial straits. Alcohol and drugs added to a charged atmosphere.
The boys’ father thundered. His touch became something to cringe at. Everyone in the house felt his rage.
Eventually, Kim cut anchor and set sail. She put her sons and the absolute necessities in the car, ditched everything else and fled south to refuge. It was a bitter, confusing time for the Witten boys. Jason, the youngest, was only 11.
“There are probably a lot of things Ryan saw that I didn’t see,” Shawn says, “and there are probably a lot of things I saw that Jason didn’t see.”
But Jason saw enough. And for a time, the memories vexed him. Questions and doubts gnawed at his soul. Chaos ruled inside him.
Now, two decades later, he is a superstar on the third-most valuable sports franchise in the world. He is one of the greatest tight ends of his generation, if not in NFL history. A future place in Canton is likely. And he is at peace.
This serenity, though, is not a product of worldly success. It’s a result of faith, compassion and charity. To find Witten’s greatest legacy, you must look outside the hash marks. You must find the bruised, battered and helpless in Texas and Tennessee.
You must find who Jason Witten used to be.
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“Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” — Matthew 11:28
Elizabethton, Tenn., boasts a 130-year-old covered bridge. The town also hosts an annual festival to celebrate this bridge. Fishing is big there. Real big. So is squirrel huntin’, turkey huntin’ and, as the locals call them, “pancake feeds” at the neighborhood Kiwanis Club. There’s an annual bluegrass festival and a still-operational drive-in movie theater that opened in 1947.
Time doesn’t exactly stand still there, but it might struggle to beat a three-legged tortoise in a footrace. In Elizabethton, the tea is sweet, rush hour is a myth and a bad day means nothing took the bait.
This is where the Wittens’ flight to safety ended in 1993 — a sleepy Southern town of 14,200 nestled in the heart of Appalachia, 400 driving miles from D.C. but a million miles away culturally. Kim and her sons moved in with her parents, Dave and Deanna Rider, whose 1,416-square-foot, one-story home bulged as it welcomed four more occupants.
The living quarters and the budget were tight, but so were the familial bonds that were formed. Dave Rider mixed compassion with a gentle taboo on self-pity. He filled the male role model vacuum in his grandsons’ lives by demonstrating true manhood, godly character and a bit of chivalry, teaching them to open doors for ladies and stand up when a woman entered the room. He exhibited Ephesians 5 love for his wife and took his family to the local Baptist church every Sunday.
“They were great role models for me to see how to live life,” Jason says.
Jason also found refuge in his brothers. They were typical red-blooded American males, all three. Between football, basketball, baseball and track, life was one big, testosterone-fueled competition.
As the youngest, Jason occasionally took his lumps. Just typical brother stuff. But love was woven into every argument and wrestling match.
The brothers went everywhere and did everything together. Jason and Shawn became particularly close. They shared a bedroom and, later, an old black Geo Metro hatchback. They learned to read each other’s minds. Each knew when the other was hurting.
“We were three brothers who were inseparable,” Shawn says.
Still, as Jason grew older, the demons of his divorce- and abuse-marred past haunted him. His heart hardened toward God, and he resisted the Spirit’s calling. How, he wondered, could a loving God coexist with the nightmares of his youth?
But his grandparents didn’t give up. They continued to pray and pour out love.
In ninth grade, Jason met Michelle, his future wife, at Elizabethton High School. She came from a godly family whose genuine kindness intrigued Jason. The Spirit was stirring. The following year, Witten’s heart had softened. While on an FCA retreat in Nashville, he put his faith in Christ.
“That’s when I understood what life is all about,” he says.
As Jason’s faith was growing, so were his football skills. He had come to the right place for that.
“Football was a way of life for us,” Shawn says of the Rider home. “The conversations in the car, at the dinner table — it was 24/7. Our family lives and eats it.”
Dave Rider started the obsession. An All-American high school running back from War, W.Va., he lettered at West Virginia University from 1957 to 1959 and helped the 1958 Mountaineers to a Southern Conference title. The Washington Redskins and the old AFL’s Boston Patriots drafted him, but he never played a professional down, becoming a coach instead. By the time his grandsons arrived, Rider was a local legend, having amassed 200-plus career victories at Elizabethton between 1976 and 1999.
Rider didn’t have to worry about his grandsons trying to use family bloodlines to their advantage. The boys were self-policing.
“One day, Shawn called me Pa-Paw in practice,” Rider says, “and Jason said, ‘You can’t call him Pa-Paw!’ So then they never called me anything. They just talked to other coaches.”
Ryan set the bar for his brothers, starting for three years on varsity and earning all-conference honors as a free safety. But Elizabethton, which only had one playoff win since 1938 before the younger brothers’ arrival, didn’t truly begin buzzing until Shawn and Jason donned the Cyclones’ black and orange. Starting in 1997 — with Shawn then a junior year and Jason a sophomore — the Rider-Witten family connection transformed Elizabethton’s stadium into the place to be on Friday nights.
With Jason on the receiving end of Shawn’s passes, and both players wreaking havoc on defense, the Cyclones reached the Class 4A state semifinals in 1997 and 1998. Businesses shut down early on game nights. The grandstands teemed with spectators. Everybody, it seemed, wanted to witness the Witten brothers and “Pa-Paw” — er, Coach Rider — in Elizabethon’s version of “Friday Night Lights.”
“My grandfather showed us the way to be successful — that if you want to be special, here’s what you have to do,” says Shawn, who is now Elizabethton’s head coach. “Jason pushed me, and I pushed him.”
While Shawn headed to Virginia Tech, where he played for four years and experienced the Michael Vick-led run to the 1999 national championship game as a freshman, Jason led the Cyclones to a third straight state semifinal appearance in 1999, earning consensus All-America and USA Today’s Tennessee Player of the Year honors as a tight end and linebacker.
“Everything came easy to him,” says Rider, now 74 years old. “When he was in ninth grade, we played for the [district] championship and he had 20 tackles. When he became a tight end, he caught 30 to 40 passes a year. He could always run real well. He had great speed where smaller people couldn’t bring him down.”
To honor its greatest football era, Elizabethton renamed its field Dave Rider Field, and the road that the school sits on — the same one that Jason used to run brutal August practice sprints on — is now 907 Jason Witten Way.
“It was special,” Jason says of playing for his grandfather. “A lot of people talk it, and very few people walk it to back it up. That man walks it. Bringing your daughter and her three boys into your house when you’re later in life, that’s a daunting task. But he was a God-fearing man. He taught us how to treat women, go to church, look people in the eye, and say, ‘Yes sir, no sir.’ Football was almost secondary.”
Jason opted to attend the University of Tennessee, where he started out as an elite defensive prospect. But because of the Volunteers’ roster needs, he soon switched to tight end.
It was a serendipitous move.
During his junior (and final) year, he set single-season school records at the position in catches (39) and receiving yards (493), earning All-SEC recognition and All-America honors from The Sporting News.
Next stop: the Lone Star State.
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“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.”— James 4:10
Entering the 2003 NFL draft, Witten was rated by some observers as the top tight end prospect available. But his patience was tested as four other tight ends were selected before the Dallas Cowboys chose Witten in the third round (69th overall).
Of those who preceded Witten, Dallas Clark (24th overall pick) has enjoyed a solid career with Indianapolis, but Bennie Joppru (Houston, 41st pick) never caught an NFL pass, L.J. Smith (Philadelphia, 61st pick) played his final game in 2009, and Teyo Johnson (Oakland, 63rd) totaled 26 receptions in three seasons before retiring.
Witten, meanwhile, is on a Hall of Fame trajectory. By 2004, his second year in the league, the 6-foot-6, 265-pound bruiser had become an elite playmaker, earning the first of seven straight Pro Bowl nominations.
Now entering his 10th season, the two-time first-team All-Pro has to be mentioned in any conversation about the greatest tight ends in NFL history. Last year, Witten passed Cleveland Browns Hall of Famer Ozzie Newsome for third on the all-time pass receptions list among tight ends, trailing only future Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez of Atlanta (1,149) and Denver Broncos Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe (815).
Witten’s 7,909 career receiving yards ranks fifth all-time among tight ends, behind Gonzalez (13,338), Sharpe (10,060), Newsome (7,980) and Hall of Famer Jackie Smith (7,918) of the old St. Louis Cardinals. With one good game this season, he’ll move into third place, and he can surpass Sharpe in a few years. Pretty heady stuff.
Dallas coaches rave about his ability to catch any type of passes, his skills as a run blocker and pass protector, his dedication to the film and weight rooms, his all-around smarts and the leadership he exhibits. He’s the total package.
“He loves to play,” says Cowboys tight ends coach John Garrett, who is involved with Dallas FCA. “He wants to honor God with his play. All the great ones have that trait — they all love football. They do all the stuff that defines loving football. They love the hard work, watching tape, practice, all the situations, all the meetings, all the stuff about it.”
Even though his Pro Bowl streak came to an end last year, Witten still produced another typically stellar season, catching 79 balls for 942 yards and five touchdowns as quarterback Tony Romo’s most sure-handed option. He hasn’t missed a start since 2006 and has led the Cowboys in receptions for five straight years. In September 2011, he signed a contract extension that runs through 2017 for $37 million, including $19 million guaranteed.
“We recognize his value and ability,” Garrett says. “We want him to be a Cowboy for life. He’s a great example for veterans and rookies on how to prepare. He stays in such great shape and prepares physically and mentally for each season. His durability is not a surprise.”
About the only thing Witten’s career is lacking is a deep playoff run. He’s been to the postseason four times (not since 2009), but the once-vaunted franchise has gone just 1-4 in those games.
“In my 10th year, it’s not so much about me,” Witten says. “It’s about my team and holding up the Lombardi Trophy at the end of the year.”
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In December 2007, Witten started his SCORE Foundation, which has launched a variety of initiatives throughout Texas to end domestic violence and care for its victims.
“You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result—the survival of many people.” — Genesis 50:20
Father and son don’t see each other much anymore. Oh, sure, Ed Witten attends several Cowboys games a year to watch his son plow over poor, hapless cornerbacks. He typically shows up to Jason’s football camp in Elizabethton each summer. And they occasionally talk on the phone.
But Ed lives in southwest Virginia, a thousand miles from Jason’s home in Southlake, Texas. There’s the physical distance, but there’s emotional distance, too. Still, Jason says he isn’t letting the acidic memories of his past corrode his soul.
“There’s no bitterness on my end,” he says.
There is, instead, a heavenly paradox. Out of the smoldering ashes of domestic violence, hope has bloomed. Like Joseph, the ancient Hebrew patriarch whose banishment to Egypt turned into Israel’s salvation, Witten can look back and see divine fingerprints all over his life. God has sovereignly redeemed evil and turned it into good.
Witten is now one of the leading advocates among all U.S. professional athletes for domestic abuse victims. In December 2007, he started his SCORE Foundation, which has launched a variety of initiatives throughout Texas to end domestic violence and care for its victims. The foundation has placed male mentors in six battered women shelters throughout the state to provide positive male role models to the young children there.
Witten invests heavily in Boys & Girls Clubs in Dallas and Elizabethton, and he’s also involved with the Salvation Army, the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the United Way. Each year, he presents two $5,000 scholarships to a pair of deserving high school athletes in east Tennessee and southwest Virginia. And his annual football camp in Elizabethton is one of the largest free football camps in the country.
In 2009, he and Michelle, an emergency room nurse at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, personally funded a kid-friendly waiting area at the Johnson City (Tenn.) Medical Center’s children’s emergency room. He’s still involved with FCA, too. Last April, he spoke at Dallas FCA’s 2012 Tom Landry Excellence of Character Award Dinner.
The list goes on and on.
“Jason is a solid, well-grounded, godly man,” says David Shivers, the Cowboys’ chaplain and a pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas. “He loves people and loves the Lord and has the desire to honor Jesus with his skills on and off the field.”
Provoked by his past, Witten also seeks to model Christ-like love to his own family. Jason and Michelle, who got married shortly after he was drafted in 2003, have two young boys, C.J. and Cooper, and are expecting a third child in late October. He adores Michelle and dotes on his boys. When Witten travels for corporate obligations, he often chooses to fly home late on the night he’s finished, rather than opting for a more-relaxed, next-day flight, to be home earlier for his family.
“There’s a joy in the way he loves his wife and serves his children,” Shivers says. “When he’s in town, he loves being around them. He wants to be the best dad he can be, based on his experiences.”
Once, Witten’s life was marked by pain, suffering and confusion. Now, having been forged on the fiery anvil of adversity, he has become a blessing to others.
“The neatest thing for my wife and I is the lives we’re able to impact,” he says. “It’s definitely something I’m proud of and want to continue. I hope that legacy lasts long after football is gone.”
--If you, or someone you know, is in danger of domestic violence, contact the U.S. National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE
(7233).
--For more information on Jason Witten and his SCORE Foundation, visit jasonwitten82.com.
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Bringing It Home
Our Heavenly Father's Love
Jason Witten faced a difficult early childhood, lacking in many ways the fatherly love that every child needs.
When Witten’s mother moved him and his brothers in with her parents in Tennessee, Witten discovered what a father’s nurturing, unconditional love felt like under the care of his grandfather. Dave Rider’s model of compassion, true manhood and character was rooted in his Christian faith, something Witten embraced as his own at an FCA retreat during his freshman year in high school. Now a father himself, Witten is impacting his family history for generations to come through his relationship with his Heavenly Father.
Regardless of our individual home lives, we all long for the unconditional love that Witten now finds in God.
It’s a love that isn’t contingent upon anything we do in this world—success, good grades, athletic achievements or business endeavors. He loves us that much because He created us in His perfect image, as His sons and daughters who were meant to be shining lights of His glory.
But through our inherited sin from our original parents, Adam and Eve, we are no longer the perfect creations God intended us to be. Sin has broken relationships and families and separated us from our Creator. It’s left us longing for Him and His love—the only thing that can truly satisfy us.
But here is the best news of all. Because He loves us so much, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the price for our sins once and for all. Through His blood shed on the cross more than 2,000 years ago, our sins are forgiven and we can be saved from eternal separation from Him. All we have to do is receive His death in our place, celebrate His victory through the resurrection, and accept His personal invitation into a relationship with Him.
Your past or present reality is irrelevant. The love of the Heavenly Father is waiting for you. All you have to do is accept it. Run into His open, loving arms and allow Him to embrace you and give you eternal life and peace.
If you have questions about a relationship with Christ or what it means to be saved, call FCA’s National Support Center at
(800) 289-0909 or visit morethanwinning.org.
Photos courtesy of James D. Smith, Jason Witten's SCORE Foundation and Bob Almond/Almond Tree Studios