After Aaron Hernandez’s arrest for murder in 2013, the Patriots hired a fellow named Jack Easterby to be their character coach.
You’ve probably never heard of him and he’s never publicly spoken to the media. During Monday night’s media session, he did.
“My job is to serve anybody and everybody in the building, to help them however I can, to help us be prepared on and off the football field, to be prepared as men, as people, and hopefully stay out of the way,” Easterby said. “And then also to be the glue for our team. We have a lot of issues that come up throughout the year, as you can imagine. It’s a roller coaster — a six-month roller coaster that we go through as a team.”
During Josh Gordon’s four months with the Patriots, Easterby was the guy who spent the most time with the talented receiver.
In Week 3, even though Gordon was inactive, he was on the field pregame in Detroit playing catch and joking around with Easterby.
Easterby is a “fixture” in the Patriots locker room during the week, often times leaving spiritual and motivational cards in players’ lockers, while also spending as much time as he can with the players often times speaking on things other than football.
“When you lead people, you need to be with them at all points,” Easterby said. “And to me, one of the biggest things is you come in as a servant no matter if you’re winning and you’ve won Super Bowls — which we’ve been blessed to do — or if you are going through challenges, like we did when I first got here. You have to serve. You have to take the kid gloves off. You’ve got to get dirty and serve and work through any and every issue that’s thrown your way.”
Jason McCourty spoke highly of Easterby on Monday night (via Boston Herald):
“Jack is a special guy. He’s done a lot for me this season. Not just for me, but for a lot of guys in this locker room. Being a guy that you can go talk to about anything, a guy that’s going to shoot you a text just to say, ‘I hope your day is going well. For us as football players and men, going through a lot of different challenges, whether it’s transitioning (to a new team), whether it’s football issues, whatever it is, he’s there.”
Follow @MySportsUpdate on twitter for all the latest info from around the NFL.
Be the first to comment