Aaron Hackett

Jordan Love was 14 when he lost his dad. The @packers QB remembers him and how he was one of his biggest supporters: “My dad actually wanted to name me Michael Jordan. That’s real. Michael Jordan Love. My mom vetoed it, thank God. When I say my dad taught me everything, I really mean everything. We’d be out in the yard from the time I could walk — no, really from the time I could stand. Football, basketball, every sport imaginable. There’s a picture of me from when I was a baby and my dad is putting me up on a race horse. I’m like one, in my diaper, and I’m chilling up on some Secretariat-looking dude. My dad’s motto was, ‘Try everything.’ He just had this relentless positivity about him. In his mind, me and my sisters could really do anything. Him and my mom were both police officers. My dad was a sergeant for the Bakersfield Police Department and my mom was California Highway Patrol, but they couldn’t have been more different personalities. The smile never left my dad’s face. My mom, she was the yin to his yang. She was all business. She had an aura, you know? And that aura said, ‘Did you do your homework?’ Me and my friends would be out in the yard playing capture the flag or whatever, and she’d come home from work rocking those police aviators, and all my boys would be shook. ‘Don’t you boys have a pop quiz tomorrow?’ ‘Yo, how’s she even know about that???’ One of those moms. You know the type. My dad, he was my road dog. He used to pick me up after working a double shift and we’d pull up straight to the Little League field in his police cruiser. He’d be in the outfield helping coach with his full BPD uniform on, beeper in the belt buckle and everything. Everybody in town knew ‘Big O.’ Everybody loved him. He was literally always just there. To me, there’s no higher praise for a dad. In almost every memory I have. He was there. That was my partner, man. There’s this photo that I love of him and me, from when I was really little. He’s passed out on the edge of the bed in the middle of the day, taking a nap, probably after we were playing around outside for hours, and I’m laying on his chest, completely passed out right with him. I can honestly say before July 13, 2013, I had pretty much the perfect upbringing. But that’s the crazy thing about life. You think you got all the time in the world. You think nothing is ever going to change. And then it changes.” playerstribu.ne/JLove @jordan3love | @USUFootball