MEDIA, Pa. — In a area the place everyone seems to be decked out in Philadelphia Eagles gear, particularly with the group headed to the Tremendous Bowl for the second time in six seasons, Ed Kelce is simple to identify.He’s a tall, sturdy man with broad shoulders and meaty arms, and even at 71 has a thick head of hair that’s parted down the center and extra salt than pepper.What’s completely different about Kelce is conflicting apparel. Underneath his requisite inexperienced Eagles windbreaker is a crimson Kansas Metropolis Chiefs T-shirt. How nervy — or possibly simply absentminded — to rep the Chiefs on this Philadelphia suburb. The Eagles will face Kansas Metropolis in Tremendous Bowl LVII. Ed Kelce, father of the Chiefs’ Travis and the Eagles’ Jason, at a diner in Media, Pa.(Sam Farmer / Los Angeles Occasions) Solely Kelce isn’t confused. Only a proud dad.His son, Jason Kelce, is the All-Professional heart for the Eagles. His youthful son, Travis Kelce, is the All-Professional tight finish for the Chiefs.On Feb. 12, the Kelce boys will make historical past as the primary brothers to play towards one another on soccer’s largest stage. They every have one Tremendous Bowl ring already.“Cool state of affairs to be in, you already know?” Travis Kelce mentioned after the AFC championship recreation win over Cincinnati. “My mother can’t lose.”Nicely … for the Kelce dad and mom, it’s great and torturous all of sudden.“I’ll be screaming the entire time,” Donna Kelce mentioned in an interview with Fox 8 in Cleveland, the place the boys had been raised. “Regardless of who’s on the market, I’ll be screaming.”The Kelce dad and mom have finished properly with the dilemma up to now. Though they had been divorced a decade in the past — she lives in Orlando, Fla., and he lives outdoors of Philadelphia — they’ve labored out a system to be in attendance for his or her sons’ video games.“We every attempt to be at one of many video games,” Ed Kelce mentioned. “Divide and conquer.”On the Tremendous Bowl, one mother or father might be staying at Kansas Metropolis’s group resort, and the opposite at Philadelphia’s.The dad and mom didn’t coordinate as properly within the playoffs, so that they had been each in Kansas Metropolis for the AFC divisional spherical, and each in Philadelphia for the NFC championship recreation. Nevertheless, that allowed them to observe Kansas Metropolis play Cincinnati within the AFC title recreation, at a sports activities bar close to Lincoln Monetary Subject, whereas sitting with Jason, who had simply completed his recreation towards San Francisco.A crowd gathered at Chickie’s & Pete’s to observe the Kelce trio root on Kansas Metropolis. Donna Kelce wore a jersey that was half-Eagles, half-Chiefs. The burly, bearded Jason wore a Chiefs T-shirt, which he dramatically ripped off at recreation’s finish. He may solely abdomen being a KC fan for thus lengthy.In Philadelphia — and Kansas Metropolis for that matter — cohesion is paramount.“You gained’t see me speaking an excessive amount of trash with how a lot respect and the way a lot I like my brother,” mentioned the comically bombastic Travis, who reminded Chiefs followers after the win that they certainly must struggle for his or her proper to paaaaarty.“Nevertheless it’s positively going to be an emotional recreation.”The Kelce boys are nothing if not emotional. They grew up in a suburb of Cleveland, first falling in love with hockey, then baseball and basketball, and eventually soccer.As with most brothers, that they had their share of scrapes with one another. As soon as, once they had been 14 and 12, they exchanged phrases and shoves on the driveway basketball courtroom. That carried over into the kitchen, the place their dad tried to separate them. This was the primary time Travis fought again, punching his older brother.“We’re within the kitchen and I’m wanting round and all I see are 90-degree corners to crack your head on, the counter tops and the whole lot,” Ed mentioned. “I’m yelling at them to cease. They get tousled and that is all going to go down. There’s potential right here for ER visits, which I didn’t need.”Ed, who was making ready a casserole for dinner, grabbed each his sons and dragged them to the ground. The three landed so violently in a heap, nevertheless, that the oven door fell off and the casserole fell to the ground.Then, a little bit of paternal bluffing. Kansas Metropolis Chiefs tight finish Travis Kelce (left) talks with brother, Philadelphia Eagles heart Jason Kelce, after their recreation in 2017.(Ed Zurga / Related Press) “We hit the ground and I screamed out, ‘Oh, my again!’ ” Ed mentioned. “Modified the entire dynamic. Swiftly they weren’t mad at one another; they had been anxious about dad. There wasn’t a rattling factor improper with me, nevertheless it ended the struggle.”Jason was a rough-and-tumble child, all the time large and thick for his age, and was simply as captivated with music as he was sports activities. He performed the saxophone all through his childhood, and greater than as soon as stayed up all evening writing songs with a pc program. He didn’t raise weights — that turned off lots of would-be school suitors — however transitioned from sport to sport all through the calendar yr.“He was by no means bulked out,” his father mentioned. “Everybody questioned Jason’s dedication to taking part in soccer, as a result of he didn’t work out with weights. Michigan State’s the place it actually went downhill as a result of he couldn’t bench press sufficient weight. There was a goal they anticipated guys to hit and he wasn’t even near it.“They by no means paid consideration to the truth that he would play soccer and go proper into hockey, go proper into lacrosse. He was an achieved jazz musician in a prestigious ensemble in highschool and was additionally in two different jazz bands. So he by no means actually spent lots of time within the weight room.”Travis, two years his brother’s junior, seldom averted his eyes from the TV if any sporting occasion was on, then would exit within the yard and follow what he’d simply watched.“Travis would sit in entrance of the TV from in regards to the age of three and simply watch soccer, basketball or hockey,” his father mentioned. “You know the way some little boys would have these VHS tapes of building vans? For Travis, it was all the time a recreation of some type. He’d watch that till hell froze over.”Their dad and mom each labored outdoors the home. Donna was in banking. Ed was a gross sales rep who bought merchandise to metal producers, and made positive his sons understood what it meant to work in a metal mill. This would be the second Tremendous Bowl appearnce for Philadelphia Eagles heart Jason Kelce.(Chris Szagola / Related Press) “I’d take them there — exhausting hat, security glasses, boots, the entire 9 yards,” he mentioned. “I’d inform them, `You may have a job like your mom’s, or you may have a job like mine.’ ”Ultimately, the boys selected neither. They each performed soccer on the College of Cincinnati and rounded into such stable performers that they had been drafted. Each had been chosen by their groups when Andy Reid was coach.Philadelphia made Jason a sixth-round decide in 2011. Two years later, when Reid was in Kansas Metropolis, Travis went to the Chiefs within the third.Now, Jason anchors the perfect offensive line within the league. He’s thought of undersized at 6 toes 3 and 295 kilos, however he’s fast and is aware of blocking angles in addition to any lineman within the recreation.Travis Kelce is likely to be the NFL’s most harmful red-zone risk. He was one among two unanimous first-team All-Professional choices this season, together with Minnesota receiver Justin Jefferson.Each Kelce brothers are on observe to be first-ballot Corridor of Fame inductees.In 2020, early within the coronavirus pandemic, Ed Kelce moved from Cleveland to the Philadelphia suburbs so he may very well be nearer to Jason and his spouse, Kylie, who’ve a nine-acre farm and predict their third daughter in February. Kansas Metropolis Chiefs tight finish Travis Kelce celebrates his landing towards the Chargers in November.(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Occasions) Ed lives a mile away, will get to see his granddaughters on a regular basis, and helps the household develop produce of their 4 100-foot raised vegetable beds. They develop tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, all types of peppers and the like, and donate the majority of it to underprivileged households.When he visits Kansas Metropolis, Ed stays with Travis. His son has a collection in his residence for his dad that’s tucked behind the burden room and is quieter than the extra heavily-trafficked components of the home.Now, the dad and mom are bracing for a brand new and unprecedented state of affairs and problem.“We’ll attempt to get pleasure from it,” Ed mentioned of the Tremendous Bowl. “However by 10 o’clock Sunday evening, any individual’s brokenhearted and any individual’s celebrating. We’ll take care of that the perfect we will when it occurs.”
Dad of Kelce brothers knows Chiefs and Eagles stars will battle
