Jamison Crowder Is Much More Than Just an Undersized Overachiever

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Updated: December 21, 2016

Let’s rewind four weeks to Nov. 24. It’s Thanksgiving, which means the nation’s casual sports fans are watching NFL football. The Dallas Cowboys are hosting the Washington Redskins in a crucial, highly rated NFC East tilt.

Many of those casual fans haven’t watched a Redskins game this season. They’re familiar with quarterback Kirk Cousins and veteran wide receivers DeSean Jackson and Pierre Garcon, maybe even star left tackle Trent Williams. That might be it.

It’s late in the first quarter. Another guy—not Jackson, not Garcon—sprints at roadrunner speed from the right slot, past a blitzing defensive back and two linebackers on a crossing pattern. Despite starting his route flat-footed and making contact with two separate defenders, the anonymous receiver runs approximately 28 yards in three seconds flat before hauling in a pass from Cousins. He makes the catch at the 50-yard line, finds another gear and is taken down only four seconds later at the Dallas 27.

I get a text from one of those casual fans, a guy who’s just now been focusing on a Redskins game for the first time all year.

“This little James Crowter kid is pretty good!”

Of course, he was referring to Jamison—although to my clueless friend’s lucky credit, Jamison’s father is named James—Crowder. I didn’t respond immediately, but he probably had the name down after Crowder caught two more passes in the second quarter and four in the second half.

What my buddy didn’t realize is that Jamison Crowder—albeit somewhat quietly—led all Redskins receivers in targets, receptions, receiving yards and touchdowns (in the latter category, he still does). The 23-year-old has caught seven touchdown passes this season, which ranks tied for ninth in the NFL.

That message was, however, right about one thing: Crowder is little. In fact, few productive professional football players are littler.

According to Pro Football Reference, 1,935 men have played in the NFL this season. Only nine of them are shorter than Crowder—although he takes some exception to that.

“They got me at 5-foot-8,” he told me, “but I think I’m 5-foot-9.”

When I first pursued Crowder for a story, I wanted to know how in the world he became a successful wide receiver in the National Football League despite that vertical challenge. But after doing a little research, I was almost embarrassed to ask Crowder about overcoming his height.

Don’t get me wrong, the Duke product and Monroe, North Carolina, native deserves a lot of credit for refusing to let his size prevent him from achieving his dream, especially because he was also the smallest kid on the court or field in grade school, high school and college. But Crowder can still dunk a basketball flat-footed, and it’s pretty clear he plays bigger than he is.

But he tells me his height is “just one of the things that has always motivated me to become a better player.”

Just one of the things.

What else motivates Jamison Crowder? What else has he been forced to overcome, aside from the height he inherited from James and his mother, Brenda? To find out, we’ll have to travel back to that April weekend in 2015, when he was passed up 104 times in the NFL draft, despite the expectation he’d be taken earlier.

We’d have to stop at Lake Tillery, 50 miles outside of Charlotte, on the Fourth of July, 2012, when Crowder and close friend and Duke teammate Blair Holliday were messing around on jet skis, doing what 19-year-old college students do. That is until they collided, sending Holliday into a coma and ending his football career in a split second.

And we’d have to go back to Monroe, on Dec. 7, 2002, the day a 9-year-old Jamison Crowder had to grasp the idea that his newborn baby brother had come into this world with nonverbal Down syndrome.

For Jamaris

James and Brenda Crowder knew that their second son might be born with a birth defect, and they did their best to prepare young Jamison for that, but there’s only so much you can do to make a third-grader comprehend the limitations associated with disabilities.

Jamison had to understand that his younger brother Jamaris likely would lack the ability to do a lot of the things younger brothers do. But at the age of 9, he embraced the first major challenge of his life.

“He got a lot out of Jamaris that we didn’t get out of him initially, and we could just see the love, even with Jamaris’ limitations,” Brenda Crowder said. “With Jamison around, Jamaris would be a whole different (kid). Jamison will get him to laugh, and you’d feel that brotherly connection that the two of them have.”

The two used sports to forge a relationship as kids, and Jamaris joined James and Brenda at all of Jamison’s basketball and football games. Jamaris is 14 now, and he and his parents make the eight-hour trek to Washington for every Redskins home game while also attending every road game within driving distance.

And while Jamaris learned a lot—including how to dribble a basketball—by watching his big bro, Jamison has also benefited greatly from their relationship.

“At first I didn’t really understand what Down syndrome was,” Jamison said, “but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen the challenges that he’s been through and we’ve been through as a family. It definitely made me a better and more patient person. I had to be there to help out and that helped me mature and grow up faster.”

To boot, Jamison was—and continues to be—inspired by the fact Jamaris is incapable of pursuing the types of dreams Jamison has chased.

“Every time I take the field,” he said, “I think about my brother and use that as motivation.”

“I know in his mind and in his heart, he doesn’t just do this for himself,” added Brenda. “I think he feels that he’s doing something that his little brother isn’t able to do.”

For Blair

Jamison Crowder and Blair Holliday were pals before the two suited up together as freshman wide receivers at Duke in 2011. The three-star recruits made their official visits to the school on the same weekend, and they hung out in each other’s dorm rooms throughout that 2011-12 school year.

Both saw limited action on offense that year, with Crowder catching 14 passes and Holliday just three. But there were strong indications they’d continue to gain playing time together as sophomores …

continue reading in source www.bleacherreport.com

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