TAMPA, FLA--

It takes a special player to be a J Boy

“It’s more of a brotherhood,” junior athlete Joe Hodge said. “Everybody comes along, everybody gets along and it’s just fun here.”

J Boys stick together.

“It’s a way you live,” Carlo Thompson said.

Carlo Thompson was a J Boy back in the day. The Jefferson Class of 2001 alum now watches his nephew Joe Hodge carry on the tradition. And the attitude.

“Just score, try to score, make a play,” Hodge said. “Playmakers make plays.”

Carlo helped pave the path to the football field for Joe where he gets to make those plays.

“I saw a hunger in him at an early age,” Thompson said. “From go, you could just see he had a different kind of drive, a different kind of want to. And I knew, if I could put him in the right situation, the skies the limit.”

Carlo sees a future for Joe. Joe sees a lot of things in his uncle.

“That’s my man,” Hodge said. “That’s my guy right there.”

On Friday nights, Carlo loves watching Joe run around the football field.  He knows it’s the one arena where the bad thoughts don’t creep in.

“That’s the one place you get to be carefree,” he said.

Carefree doesn’t come easy to Joe. It’s hard to be carefree when your father died of a heart attack when you’re only six years old. That leaves a mark.

But Joe has a few fond memories of his dad.

“We used to eat a lot and make jokes a lot,” Hodge recalled.

Soon after his father passed away, Joe started playing football. It became his escape.

“He do a good job in bottling it all up, at least from me,” he said. “I can see it at times, but I can see moments.”

Carlo does his best to make those moments few and far between.

“Any kid want their father to be there, want that connection, so I don’t try to replace him,” Thompson said. “I won’t ever be able to replace him, but I try to fill that void.”

Football helps.

“Football in our household is like life, literally, but it’s bigger than the game,” Thompson said.

Joe has a future in football. College recruiters are taking notice. And his background, and especially his support system, are setting him up for the next level.

“You can tell that he can handle adversity and he knows how to handle it and he has his priorities in order and has a bright future,” Jefferson coach Joe Midulla said. “What it is to be a J Boy, that grind, that competition? He’s got it in him.”