Before Devin McCourty was drafted, his mother was a nervous wreck.
What if, for the first time in their lives, her twin boys no longer walked lockstep through life?
“You kind of hold your breath,” says Phyllis Harrell. “All their life, they had always done everything together.” She remembered thinking during those days of uncertainty, “I would be devastated if Devin doesn’t get drafted.”
We know now, of course, it was needless worry. McCourty was a first-round pick of the Patriots in 2010, following right behind his brother Jason, selected in the sixth round by the Titans in 2009. Together then and together now, in everything, including their advocacy to support sickle cell anemia awareness.
NFL training camp is at full tilt, with teams pushing hard before the start of the 2015 season. Locker room fights, courtroom disputes and position battles are making headlines. Jason and Devin McCourty aren’t at all removed from the daily grind that is preseason football, but as recently as last week the pair were relentlessly promoting their Tackle Sickle Cell initiative.
“It gives you a purpose,” Devin told Sporting News. “I think sometimes, especially playing in New England, a big-time area where they love sports, we win games and you start to think that what you’re doing is very important. When we go to different events, or I go to one of my teammates’ events, and you meet people and hear their story, you start to realize how small football is.”
And how enormous the challenges are outside of it.
They see it in their aunt, Winnie McCourty. Battling the disease her entire life, at 65 years old — far out-living the 35-year projected lifespan she was given — she is now on oxygen, is legally blind and struggles to keep her red blood cell count up.
“It’s very painful,” Jason said. “As we got older, we began to see what she was going through. She never complained. She loved to travel and enjoy life.”
They’ve since seen the debilitating effects on an even broader scale. In the central New Jersey area, where they went to school at Rutgers, at least 200 young people under the age of 22 deal with the blood disorder. Nationwide, there are 100,000 people with sickle cell, and of those, 90 percent are African-American.
Ryan Clark, now an ESPN analyst after 13 seasons in the NFL, carries the trait and once had a frightening crisis while playing a game in Denver. His sister-in-law died in 2009 from complications of the disease. Mike Adams of the Colts has a close family member with the disorder. Free-agent receiver Santonio Holmes also has sickle cell and has advocated for awareness. Many in sports and beyond are connected in some way.
Yet, the sickle cell community is vastly underserved.
Mother’s orders
Harrell believes to whom much is given, much is required. The McCourty twins have been given a lot. Raised by a single mother, along with their older brother, Lawrence White, the odds that not one, but both twins would reach the football pinnacle were slim. Harrell was a longtime nurse at a psychiatric hospital before an accident years ago left her knees badly injured. She has had two knee replacements and multiple other surgeries. Unable to work, she devoted herself completely to her children. Their athletic gifts combined with all she poured into them resulted in punched tickets to Boston and Nashville. But the ride wouldn’t be free, she insisted.
They had to give what humanity required. On this point, she would not relent. And they had to do it in tandem.
“I guess I can give myself credit for that,” she said, laughing.
It wasn’t difficult to decide where they would focus their charitable efforts. On the same block as their school is Embrace Kids, a foundation that provides multiple support services for families affected by sickle cell. In addition to the twins’ aunt having the disease, their father’s brother carries the trait, as did their father, who died of a heart attack when the twins were only 3 years old. The twins were tested as children and neither carries the trait.
Glenn Jenkins, executive director of Embrace Kids, had known the McCourtys for several years. When they asked how they could help, he said, they became fully committed to the Tackle Sickle Cell campaign.
“You don’t find a lot of high-visibility athletes putting their names to this cause,” Jenkins said. “They are well-followed and well-liked, and it’s making a difference. Fundraising is up and media (visibility) is up.”
Blood drives, 5K runs and casino nights have all been part of their effort. They visit hospitals in their respective NFL cities, and give of their own resources.
When Jason’s wife won an Xbox in a raffle at one of the casino night events, she gave it to Savion, a 13-year-old with the blood disorder to whom the brothers have grown especially close. Devin met another young man during a hospital visit while he was there getting a blood transfusion. He has since been to Patriots training camp practices and games. Their mother encountered a man with the illness who was afraid to have children, for fear that he would pass it down.
Those are the stories that inspire them to press on — for more research, funding and healthy lives.
Additionally, Devin, a free safety, and Jason, a Titans cornerback, run football camps. Their year-round contributions were recognized after last season when they were named Man of the Year for their respective teams. Thomas Davis of the Panthers won the overall league award. Simultaneously being applauded for their charitable work was a crowning achievement.
“I thought it was a better representation of what our mom did for us growing up and all the things she instilled in us,” Devin said. “For both of us to win it, I think it showed it wasn’t as much what we did as it was what she put into raising us.”
Said their mother: “I was very proud of that. Not that you’re not proud of what they do on the field, but what you do off the field when you take your notoriety and put it into use to help somebody else, it’s just special.”
Harrell already has her football season planned. She’ll spend at least a month in Nashville with Jason, his wife and his daughter. She calls him a “bleeding heart” and more of a homebody. Then, she’ll be in Boston for all of Devin’s home games. He’s more like her, she says, a party-goer who likes to have a good time.
In that way, the twins are dissimilar. But in every other facet, they are doing life together.
“This was my mom’s dream,” Jason said.
