One of the greatest talent evaluators in NFL history was studying the all-Big Ten football rosters earlier this week, when he noticed a potential mistake. Sure, first-team selection Connor Cook is considered one of the best quarterbacks in the country, a likely first-round draft pick who has Michigan State in Saturday’s Big Ten championship game. But had voters possibly overlooked his opponent, Iowa’s C.J. Beathard?
“No, Dad,” C.J.’s father reassured C.J.’s grandpa. “He doesn’t need to be first-team.”
C.J.’s grandpa — once dubbed “the smartest man in the NFL” by Sports Illustrated — relented. But ask him to provide a pro scouting report on the 6-foot-2 junior whose undefeated Hawkeyes are ranked fourth in the country, and it isn’t clear if you’re hearing from Bobby Beathard, architect of Washington’s Super Bowl-winning teams, or Bobby Beathard, proud grandpa. He’ll talk about C.J.’s foot speed, his arm strength and his leadership. He’ll cite C.J.’s football smarts and knowledge of the game.
“Just looking at quarterbacks, in my opinion, he’s got what you look for,” said the 78-year old Bobby, until the grandfather gene kicked in. “But who knows what will happen,” he added with a laugh. “I just hope he gets through it healthy and has fun.”
If you’re thinking it must have been wild to call Bobby Beathard your grandpa, well, you have no idea. Summer vacations included trips to NFL facilities in San Diego — where he was the general manager — or Atlanta, where he later served as a senior adviser for the Falcons. The gaggle of Beathard grandkids had the run of those places, just like their fathers had once enjoyed at Redskins Park. They explored the weight rooms, tossed footballs on the sidelines, toured the locker rooms, and befriended pros such as Junior Seau and Rodney Harrison in San Diego, and Michael Vick and T.J. Duckett in Atlanta. You know, normal kid stuff.
Bobby Beathard, famous for his love of the outdoors, would often take his grandkids for hikes in the woods. These inevitably included frenzied competitions to see who could throw a rock closest to some far-off tree, or post, or sign. How would grandpa respond?
“He was the one instigating it,” said Tucker, C.J.’s younger brother. “He was the one who would talk trash if he won and make up an excuse if he lost.”
And during the annual beach trip to the Outer Banks, the grandkids would start their football games before suitcases were unpacked, trying to show off for family members steeped in the sport.
“If you got a compliment from Grandpa, if he said something, that was kind of a big deal,” Tucker said.
“He was always out there watching us,” C.J. said this week. “Me and my brothers and all my cousins were always trying to impress him.”
Not just Bobby, either. The Beathard family treated football like the Bushes do politics. One of Bobby’s sons, Jeff, is a scout for the Carolina Panthers. Another, Kurt, is the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for Illinois State. C.J.’s cousin Bobo, a former star at Prince William County’s Battlefield High, scored four touchdowns this season as a receiver at Appalachian State. C.J.’s younger brother Clay, another quarterback, was Tennessee’s Division II-A high school back of the year last season and a finalist this year.
“Football runs in my blood,” C.J. said, “and it started with my grandpa.”
Bobby passed that obsession on to his three sons, thanks in part to the Redskins. As he worked with Joe Gibbs to assemble Washington’s powerhouse rosters of the 1980s, Beathard brought his kids along — sometimes even on scouting trips. They earned $50 a week as ballboys during training camp in Carlisle, ran sprints on the practice fields, tossed footballs with Joe Theismann, begged for extra shoes from Joe Washington, and palled around with the Pardee, Petitbon and Gibbs kids.
“That was just life,” said Casey, C.J.’s father. “I don’t even remember thinking how lucky we were. I’m not sure we understood it.”
Casey was a quarterback, too, but he didn’t really have the size for the position. He was listed at a strapping 5 feet 8 and 149 pounds in an Oakton High program, though he thinks those numbers might have been exaggerated. Still, he played receiver at Elon and was set to go to law school before chucking that aside to pursue a career in country music.
That turned out okay, all things considered. Casey’s award-winning songwriting career has included collaborations with Kenny Chesney, Eric Church, Trace Adkins, Tim McGraw and many more of the industry’s biggest stars. Those men still text Casey to ask about Iowa’s upcoming games and wish the family good luck — when they aren’t just texting C.J. directly. Yes, the kids somehow made time between meeting Michael Vick and T.J. Duckett to hang out with Kenny Chesney and Eric Church.
“Looking back now, it’s pretty cool to think about how fortunate we were to grow up around that atmosphere,” said Tucker, C.J.’s brother, now a signed musician himself. “I don’t know if we took it for granted, but when you start out so young meeting these people, you don’t really look at them as famous.”
C.J. played music too — he was once the lead singer and songwriter in a band with his brother — but his passion was football. Problem was, it seemed like he had his dad’s size. He was 5 feet 7 and 113 pounds as a high school freshman, ticked off that he couldn’t make the varsity.
“I know, buddy; hang in there,” Casey told him, figuring this would be an issue as long as he played football. Instead, C.J. sprouted; 5 feet 10 as a sophomore, and 6 feet 2 after his junior year. He got an offer from Ole Miss, and went for a visit to Iowa. Bobby Beathard had once tried to hire Hawkeyes Coach Kirk Ferentz into the NFL, so he eagerly volunteered to make a call on C.J.’s behalf.
“No, no, no, do not call him,” C.J.’s dad said. “Let this trip happen. If he goes there, and you guys want to talk, that’s fine. But no, we’re not doing that.”
This is the challenge when you’re at once a doting grandfather and also Bobby Beathard, Super Bowl champion. When C.J. was still that skinny high school kid, Bobby thought maybe he could be a collegiate receiver.
“He can really catch — gosh, you know what, I’m gonna call June Jones, he needs a guy like C.J.,” Bobby might have said.
“It’s like, ‘Dad, he’s only a freshman in high school; don’t call them,'” Casey would respond.
Bobby — who still calls the Redskins era “the most fun days” of his NFL career — has a calendar in his Tennessee home to keep all his football-watching duties straight. He praised current Redskins GM Scot McCloughan, and attends reunions for multiple NFL clubs, but called himself “just a fan now,” more consumed with following his family members than the league. When asked how many of his relatives’ games he has attended this season, he laughed again. “How many weeks are there?” he replied.
When those grandkids of his were younger, of course, they didn’t exactly realize what he had accomplished in his career, thinking only that he had a pretty cool job.
“It took a lot of maturing and growing up to kind of look back and realize how big of an icon he is in pro football,” Tucker said.
“I had no idea,” C.J. said. “I don’t think it was ’til high school that I realized how big of a deal he was in the NFL.”
They know now. C.J., who played sparingly as a sophomore but took over the starting job at Iowa this season, is getting to be a pretty big deal himself. He completed 61 percent of his passes for 2,354 yards this season, with 14 touchdowns to three interceptions. He was second-team All-Big Ten — Grandpa’s vote notwithstanding — and seems on track to get his own chance to play pro ball some day. He hasn’t, however, asked Bobby to handicap his odds.
“He’s not like a scout to me; he doesn’t say, ‘You need to do this and you need to do that’ ” C.J. said. “He’s always just been a grandpa to me.”
“I’m just thankful that they’re so proud of their grandpa,” Casey said. “It’s getting further and further away from people really knowing who he was anymore, but they still throw his name out there, and that makes me smile, to hear them talk about Grandpa. … It started for them because they got those opportunities as kids to go around these heroes of theirs, and to impress their grandpa.”
And Bobby is just as eager to discuss the exploits of Bobo at Appalachian State, or Clay in high school, or his daughter’s kids, who grew up in Colorado and are obsessed with hockey. Among the biggest challenges for a proud grandfather in a football family is counting down the hours between the big games, such as Saturday’s.
“You can’t wait for the game,” he said. “You think, ‘Oh God, I’d do anything to kill time before the game goes on so I can watch it.’ ”
A win from Iowa this weekend would put C.J. and his Hawkeyes in the College Football Playoff, possibly against perennial power Alabama. That Alabama team’s bench, by the way, includes a freshman offensive lineman from Annapolis. Kid named Richie Petitbon.
