Jason Jenkins is strolling by means of a rusty gate to a home in Little Havana. As regular, he doesn’t seem like a company vice chairman attempting to save lots of our neighborhood, one individual at a time. He appears like a supply man carrying a field with a hurried step.
“Hello, right here’s your turkey,’ he stated, knocking on the door.
He turned, sweating in his Miami Dolphins shirt, after three hours of strolling and driving to homes two days earlier than Thanksgiving a number of years again.
“They asked for another turkey,’ he said to me, as he read the to-do list in his hand. “We’ve got a lot more to deliver today.”
You by no means know while you’re a headline. Jenkins is one right this moment, gone at 47, the Dolphins vice chairman of communication and neighborhood affairs leaving not simply his spouse, Elizabeth and three youngsters behind, but additionally a corporation in tears. A full neighborhood, too.
Coach Mike McDaniel stood after a preseason recreation in opposition to Philadelphia and stated, voice quaking and eyes leaking, “Football pales in comparison to what all the people who were really affected. The list is long.”
The record included an previous defensive finish who met Jenkins when he arrived in early 2009, Jason Taylor, who was in tears on the sport’s tv broadcast Saturday, saying, “We lost a good one.” And this record features a younger defensive finish, Jaelan Phillips, who has lent his time to working with Jenkins in the neighborhood.
“One of essentially the most unimaginable and selfless human beings I’ve ever met,’ Phillips tweeted.
Those of us who’re alongside for the journey, who receives a commission to look at video games and see the insides of groups, we search for the great guys, those who perceive the significance of sports activities, positive, but additionally who can grasp their unimportance.
Jason was one of many good guys. He acquired the Dolphins extra concerned in the neighborhood than any workforce in South Florida’s historical past. Partnering with minority eating places in Miami Gardens. Equipping high-school groups in Miami-Dade. Fund-raising for most cancers analysis. Serving as a bridge between police and Black youth.
All of that’s the reason the Dolphins gained the NFL’s community-service award final 12 months. It’s why different sports activities groups known as asking for recommendation on their applications. It was Jason. He’d give dismissive wave if you happen to talked about his good work. That was him, too.
When his alma mater, Texas Tech, left a message for him to name someday a few graduation handle, he figured they needed assist getting in contact with former teammate there, Zach Thomas.
“Don’t ever assume as a result of we performed on the identical workforce I used to be anyplace near being a participant like him,’ he’d say.
Texas Tech didn’t need Thomas. It needed Jenkins to offer the commencement speech in 2018. Are you getting the impression of his status by now? Understanding the great phrase of his good work that individuals acknowledged?
“Relationships, values and braveness — you want all three,’ he instructed the Texas Tech class.
He had all three. They outlined him. For years, watching Jason’s good work, I’d say the Dolphins had been a first-class group in all places however the place folks needed them to be. The workforce hasn’t been good. He knew it, his 13 seasons right here and never getting one playoff win.
“We’re engaged on that,’ he’d say.
The final time I talked with him was a few weeks in the past at a Dolphins observe. He sat down and needed to find out about Bob Kuechenberg, who was up for a Hall of Fame bid. I needed to find out about work he was doing with getting gear to high-school groups.
“I’ll let you know about that once we’ve organized all of it,’ he stated.
We gained’t have that dialogue. He tweeted one thing about Saturday’s night time’s recreation simply after midday. He was passed by kickoff at 7 p.m. The recreation went on, simply as video games do. But there was a giant gap within the night time.
A workforce isn’t simply the gamers you see on the sector. It’s the folks behind the scenes you hardly ever see who kind the material of the group. They can nonetheless see him delivering a turkey, gear to a highschool or a participant to speak to a bunch of children. And all they’ll do now’s cry.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com