New York Giants DE Jason Pierre-Paul Embraces Being a Role Model

New York Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul knew what he was signing up for when he made the decision to play professional football.

As an NFL star, Pierre-Paul, much like his teammates and fellow league brethren, is looked upon as a role model, a status that comes with the territory.

However, it wasn’t until two significant life-changing events—becoming a father in January and, of course, his unfortunate fireworks accident that permanently damaged his right hand—that Pierre-Paul gained a new perspective on how powerful the platform he has really is and how it can enable him to communicate with young fans in a way that many of his peers can’t.

“Yeah, we talked to kids and went to hospitals and all that stuff,” he said about his community involvement before his accident.

“But it means more to me now because it actually happened to me,” he said. “A situation like this, I’m blessed to be alive and to be able to reach out to kids.”

According to ESPN, Pierre-Paul recently contacted a young fan, 11-year-old Seamus Bohannon, who suffered permanent damage to his right hand as a result of a biking accident, with words of encouragement that he delivered via FaceTime.

“People don’t know what other people are going through,” Pierre-Paul said of his chance to help lift Bohannon’s spirits with words of encouragement.

“I’m just blessed—not saying this was fortunate to happen to me or whatever—but I’m a role model, and it happened to me.”

Pierre-Paul noted that when adverse times strike, sometimes people lose focus of their goals and dreams. His message to anyone who endures unexpected adversity is to stay strong, keep focused and realize that anything is possible if you believe.

“A lot of kids are like, ‘What is he going to do now?’ Now, it’s just continuing to do what I do,” he said of the perception children like Bohannon and other young fans might have had when they learned about the consequences of the 26-year-old’s accident.

In addition to his own traumatic experience, Pierre-Paul’s new perspective started to actually take shape when he and his fiancee, Farraw Germain, welcomed their first child, son Josiah, nicknamed “Jo-Jo,” who Pierre-Paul said was born prematurely.

“A lot of guys live differently. I mean, we’re all brothers in here, but when we leave this locker room, everyone got their own thing they do,” Pierre-Paul said.

“Me personally, I got a family to take care of, and that’s what I’m doing, taking care of my family before anything.”

Part of taking care of his son includes becoming and embracing the role-model role that he would want Jo-Jo to follow as he grows up because, as Pierre-Paul explained, while children listen to their parents, the words spoken by a role model usually reinforce a message that a parent hopes to impress upon the child.

“My son, he don’t know any better. He’s learning. He’s getting ready to talk and walk. So if something were to happen to him, there’s only so much I can tell him, know what I mean?” Pierre-Paul said.

“He’s going to look up to someone other than me. When a role model tells you it’s going to be OK, it’s going to be OK.”

In Pierre-Paul’s case, he said while his family and close friends were very supportive after his accident, there wasn’t anyone among his inner circle who had quite experienced the nature of the adverse road on which he was about to embark.

“For me, nobody could tell me what to do,” he said following the accident.

Rather than let it get him down, Pierre-Paul approached his adversity much like he would an opponent who got the better of him on the field: He came back swinging harder, determined to survive.

“I already was at the top of my game. So when the situation happened, it didn’t discourage me or nothing; I just fought through it,” he said, noting that he couldn’t even draw inspiration or direction from Hall of Fame safety Ronnie Lott, who in 1986 lost the tip of his left pinkie but still managed to continue his career at a high level.

“At the end of the day it’s different situations,” he said of comparisons between his circumstances and those of Lott. “This is now, so really it was up to me to come in focused and all that, and I had a really great team behind me, so all that helped me a lot, and I never quit.”

Pierre-Paul smiled when asked to reflect on what it meant for him to be able to help a child affected by tragedy or adversity and show him that there really is a light at the other end of the tunnel.

“It means a lot. At first I didn’t really see it, but with my situation that happened, I see things different,” he said.

“It’s just a blessing for me to be able to reach out and talk to the kids, especially kids who have special needs or had something happen to them in the past. I’m just a player telling them what’s going on in my life. I’m living it. I’m living proof.”

Patricia Traina covers the Giants for Inside Football, the Journal Inquirer and Sports Xchange. All quotes and information were obtained firsthand unless otherwise sourced.

Follow me on Twitter, @Patricia_Traina.