One would not expect that a young man on the plus-side of 300 pounds would struggle in a city where large athletes help the local high school achieve greatness, but that had been the life of Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé freshman Jaasyah Crowley.
“I was just a kid who couldn’t do much,” Crowley said as he walked through a Juneau Huskies football practice, a coach’s whistle dangling from his neck. “Until I found my love for football. I started coming out here, started practicing with the guys, started doing the drills. I became a manager, but I’m working my way up by running the field, trying to become a player, building my endurance and it’s a process.”
At 5’8 and 315 pounds, Crowley is noticeable on the green turf…and being noticed is something he was never comfortable with.
“He’s here every day, I like to see that,” Huskies senior co-captain Hayden Aube said. “I am hoping that sometime in the future he will get to play football.”
Thunder Mountain Middle School resource teacher Ken Brown knows first-hand Crowley’s love for football.
“He and I would talk football a lot last year,” Brown said. “I would tease him a lot about his love for the Washington Commanders and Baltimore Ravens because I’m a huge Seahawks fan. So we talked about football. He didn’t like to do school work so it was one way I got him to do school work. We would make it football-related.”
Brown and others on the teaching staff were looking for ways to get Crowley more involved in school so Brown discussed with Huskies assistant coach Brandon Ridle the possibility of bringing Crowley into the Huskies fold as a manager and coach.
“He was physically limited and couldn’t really play,” Brown said. “But I know he has been making progress, and I know he loves the football team, he loves coaching, he just loves the game so it is really neat to see him involved. He is a very polite, quiet and respectful young man and he has a smile that will light up a room. He has the best smile. When he is smiling, it almost makes you start laughing because he just looks so happy.”
The warm-up duties are usually reserved for one of the veteran coaches, but Ridle taught Crowley the routine for one of the JV games and head coach Rich Sjoroos observed how the players reacted to Crowley and told the youth that the warmups “are all yours. I was pretty excited for him. The coaches have a lot of trust in him, and the players really like him. I really like his attention level.”
Crowley was with the team in spring workouts, doing a modified version of things he could do and staying away from what he wasn’t yet comfortable with.
“He just kept showing up,” Sjoroos said. “And it just kind of evolved. Once we got on the field, we found a role for him. He was really quiet in the beginning, we couldn’t get him to talk much, but now he is in the team photo and everything. He started back in February with us and where he is at now and what a different kid he has become because of this experience is pretty neat. This kid kind of stood in the corner at our team workouts when I first met him. He wanted to be a team manager, but since then decided he wants to play football and is working himself into some kind of shape that he can put pads on and get involved in a game. His family says he has so much more energy now and is much more social…it has been a big win all the way around.”
Last week against West Anchorage was the first time Crowley led warmups for a varsity game.
“When we do warmups I am the one that blows the whistle and tells the team what drills and then I just help out whenever anyone needs me,” Crowley said. “But there is a goal. I want to play so I am building up my endurance, trying to get on the field as a player not a manager. One of my obstacles is I am bigger than most guys and I am winded easily. I am trying to run five to 10 yards now so that doesn’t happen. It can’t happen if I am ever able to step on this field as a player. It is just a long process and a long ride but I am willing to take it. I’m changing my eating habits, changing my sleeping habits, my morning routines, my nightly routines, evening routines, I am changing pretty much everything in my day-to-day life.
He has also changed his favorite NFL team to the 49ers, and his favorite player is Tyreek Hill.
“But that can change,” he laughed.
Ridle and Sjoroos support Crowley’s efforts.
“JC has so much support from so many people to be able to do this,” Ridle said. “He started out wearing flip-flops and not doing anything to wearing tennis shoes and you’ll see him sprint. He seems to love it, he doesn’t miss a day. Now he wants to get out of bed, he wants to get his steps in, he wants to mentally and physically take better care of himself. Rain or shine, he is here every day. He wanted to just be a part of this.”
Senior co-captain Caleb Ziegenfuss said: “I think it is really awesome having him out here every day. He is still putting in the work being here every day, dedicating his time to be with the team. He goes on the trips with us. I think it is really nice for him to come out and help us out a little bit.”
Senior co-captain Sage Schultz has known Crowley before football. “And when he came out for the team it was pretty awesome and it is fun in the weight room with him also.”
Senior co-captain Jayden Johnson said Crowley was a “cool guy, and it was awesome when he came out for the team.”
The two got closer over the summer at the team unity camping trip but Johnson was an influence on Crowley before the two even met. In middle school, Crowley would watch the NFL and come to high school games,
He remembers watching past teams with Gabi Soto, Jamal Johnson, Noah Chambers and Wallace Adams and on into the team he now is a part of. He notes how much this year’s team with Hayden Aube and Jayden Johnson reminds him of the past.
“It drove me to wanting to become a player for the Huskies football team,” he said. “Pretty much all my life, it has kind of been my destiny. There is a lot of personal stuff I had to work on before I could come here. Grades, school, friendships, partnerships… If you join this team you are a family. It means the world that I have everyone on this team on my back rooting for me and it helps push me.”
Happy endings are in Hollywood movies. Real life can be more cruel.
Crowley was born 12 weeks early. The premature birth resulted in hydrocephalus, a neurological disorder caused by an abnormal buildup of cerebrospinal fluid in the cavities deep within the brain. A week after birth, he developed a brain bleed and doctors had to insert a shunt to continually draw out spinal fluid from his head.
“He has medical disabilities,” Tanya Lewis, his mother, said. “And he will never play any contact sports because he has hydrocephalus, and he has a shunt in his head, which is why he can’t play contact sports, but he just really loves football.”
Hydrocephalus led to a condition called hypothalamic obesity. Doctors damaged part of Crowley’s brain when they put in the shunt during his second brain surgery (he has had three: one at 23 days, another at two months — the original shunt — and an emergency revision of the shunt at five years old). The damage took away his ability to feel full. When he was younger, he would never get satiated and continued to eat. The condition was diagnosed late. For the past three years, they travel to Seattle Children’s Hospital monthly for treatment.
“This is why he is so large,” Lewis said. “One of his care coordinators is the mother-in-law of JV coach Ridle, and she talked to him about JC joining the team as an assistant coach. JC worked out with the team in preseason in the gym, and he has never done that before. He was unmotivated to do anything. This is pretty important to him. He is having a good time. He wants to play but he doesn’t quite understand that he can’t.”
Lewis said the football team has made her son more positive and active. Three weeks ago, he was medically cleared to be more active.
“He wants to actually get out and do stuff,” she said. “Before he just wanted to stay in the house. Now he goes to all their banquets, hangs out with the team and that sort of stuff. He never wanted to do that before.”
Lewis also credits numerous professional caregivers and counselors in Juneau who have worked with Crowley, including Christine Culliton and Southeast Alaska Care Solution’s Joshua Smith and Brielle Heflin. Crowley has recently become a Special Olympics bowler and is quite good.
“He never wanted to do that before,” Lewis said. “They do a lot with him. He is so much happier now and positive about things. Before he was very depressed. Now he is doing so good. He is an amazing kid. He loves football, he is into weightlifting now. His goal is to play.”
Sjoroos said Crowley is intelligent and would make a good football coach. The coaching staff hopes he can don pads and take the field in a controlled environment.
“We’ve talked about his dream to have all eyes on him,” Ridle said. “I know if he takes the field everybody will chant, ‘JC, JC’…and our announcer Jason Hart will get everybody, the whole crowd, chanting it…and we’ll get him a series…one play or four plays, that is his dream.”
Crowley does not hesitate to share his journey.
“I am pretty much an open book,” he said. “In middle school, I was over 400 pounds, now I am like, 300, 290. I stay positive by just coming out here, seeing all these guys five or six days out of seven days of the week. They drive me to become more positive. They drive me to do everything and before I didn’t want to do anything. High school is hard but having these guys… it’s going pretty alright. I don’t have a favorite class, that is a process. Hopefully I’ll become a high school football player and later on go to college and play in the NCAA.”
Crowley said he was lethargic and without passion before football.
“Now I am trying to move the smaller pieces into the bigger pieces of this huge giant puzzle of my life,” he said.
Crowley took his coach’s whistle and walked toward the Huskies at midfield.
A shrill blast and the team began their drills. Coach Jaasyah Crowley leading a team of 30-plus football players.
