One player after another, the little league layup line flowed — each 8-year-old lofting a shot in a St. Rose gymnasium. Then came the 3-year-old, who heaved the team basketball with all the might in his 3-foot frame before scuttling back to the beginning of the line.
John Jefferson laughed at the memory of his youngest son, Justin, who so desperately wanted to compete at the same level as his brothers.
“I wish we had videos of that,” John said. “He’d sit on the bench thinking he was on the team.”
Justin thought he was on the team, too, Sometimes, after a touchdown or knockout, one of the older brothers would shout “Justin — I see you!” and Justin would squirm with glee his brothers, Jordan and Rickey, tossed him a video game remote while they played Madden or Tekken, declaring he was playing for F-U-N.
Justin, who is nearly nine years younger than Jordan and five years younger than Rickey, didn’t know how to spell at the time, and he’d frantically tap at the remote control.
“It was a way to keep him involved,” Jordan said. “Younger brothers always look up to their older brothers. They want to be doing the same things.”
Some things never change.
Justin is the third Jefferson brother to play football at LSU, and the 6-foot-2, 185-pound sophomore is the Tigers’ leading wide receiver this season with 11 catches for 183 yards. It’s the continuation of a family legacy that began when Jordan played quarterback at LSU from 2008 until 2011, when the Tigers finished as the national runner-up. The loyalty between the program and the family runs deep, and it’s led to Justin’s career-high, 97-yard game in last week’s 22-21 win over Auburn. Moments after the win, Justin reflected on watching his brothers play against players like Cam Newton and Nick Marshall. “I’ve been watching for a long time,” he said. Said Rickey, now a safety with the New Orleans Saints: “It’s like he was destined to do it. ”The signs were always there.
Everywhere Justin went as a child, John said, he carried a football. School. Short family errands. He stopped short of bringing it to church. Sometimes, after his brothers would stop playing football in the grassy lot next door, Justin would stay in the yard for hours throwing the ball to himself. “I got a limit,” Rickey said. “He never shut down. Like, we all love sports. There’s just some guys — that’s all they care about.”
And Justin always expected to win.
When he was 9, he qualified for the Punt, Pass and Kick national championship, which was held at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina. John said Justin had little reaction to the free flight, hotel and hoopla surrounding the NFC Divisional playoff game between the Carolina Panthers and Arizona Cardinals. Only after Justin placed third — with an overall score of 168 feet, 9 inches — did he show any emotion at all.
“He was so upset,” John said. “It was his perspective.”
Sometimes, John had to widen his son’s perspective.
By the time Justin entered high school, John said, he was 5-7, 125 pounds. He was discouraged. All his friends were reaching their peak, and Rickey was just beginning his freshman year as a safety at LSU.
“We had to tell him, ‘Son, look around (at your family),’ ” John said. “‘You’re eventually going to get what they have.’”
Instead of playing varsity as a freshman, like Rickey had, Justin played safety on the freshman team.
“He’s playing freshman ball, but he’s got Jefferson as a last name,” said Stephen Robicheaux, who is in his second stint as Destrehan High School’s head coach since 2000. “So, you kind of got Justin on your radar. You know he’s going to be a good player.”
Justin broke his elbow playing scout team that season; but then, a doctor showed John and his wife, Elaine, the X-rays of their son’s growth plates.
“ ‘Man,’ ” John remembered the doctor saying. “ ‘He’s about to sprout up.’ ”
‘He believed in me’
In the summer of 1988, another late bloomer caught a train with some co-workers from New Haven, Connecticut, to New York City.
John had finally grown to 6-1 and was playing basketball at Division II Nebraska Western. He was about to transfer to Louisiana-Monroe — then called Northeast Louisiana. But first, he went to make some money working for his dad, who was a building contractor in Connecticut.
Some of the co-workers, who reserved doubts about John’s alleged 42-inch vertical, wanted to see just how good a basketball player the point guard was.
They took the subway in Manhattan to Rucker Park — home to some of the most famous pick-up basketball games in the world. Graffiti covered the grounds. Music thumped out of box speakers while an M.C. narrated the games and gave trademark nicknames to standout players.