“It’s awesome because I can turn it on and it feels like I’m back in college hanging out with them,” said Craig Carey, a longtime friend and former teammate of both. “I’m not surprised at how successful it is because I lived it.”
The Kelce brothers grew up together in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, less than two years apart in age. But the seeds of their already legendary NFL careers were planted at the University of Cincinnati, where the two became college teammates and roommates. And where they cemented the unique brotherly bond that would forever impact their shared futures, on the field and off.
Travis, left, and Jason Kelce were largely unheralded coming out of Cleveland Heights, Ohio. (Courtesy of Cincinnati athletics)
Jason and Travis arrived at Cincinnati in 2006 and 2008, respectively. Both were largely unheralded prospects coming out of high school, Jason in particular, but the outsized personalities that have been on display in recent years were evident to those present back then.
“Those two, it was just insane. Like, holy s—, these guys are crazy,” said Tom DeTemple, a friend and college teammate with the Bearcats. “Those two are really good at drinking beer. They used to love playing Nintendo 64 for hours, smashing the controls and chugging beers at the same time. They would just come up with these random drinking games while playing, and they were incredibly good at it.”
Each had their own distinct characteristics — Jason wore flip flops and listened to country music, Travis was into fashion and hip hop — and there was a clear big brother/little brother dynamic between the two. But both were outgoing and engaging in ways that drew others to them and drew them to each other, particularly on the same college campus, whether at a house party or throwing darts in the back corner of a bar called Uncle Woody’s.
“They are both people persons,” said Reuben Johnson, another mutual friend and former teammate. “They love people, people love them. They have that energy.”
That energy extended to the football field as well, where Jason and Travis burnished the competitive, tough-nosed reputations that helped develop them into NFL Draft picks.
“Both of them, when you put the ball down and it was time to play, rabid competitors,” said former Bearcats receiver Armon Binns.
Yet it was the relative obscurity of a nasty, romp-filled college house — where the two spent a year unexpectedly sharing the same bedroom — that helped lay the groundwork for so much of what followed: Super Bowl rings, Hall of Fame resumes, that wildly popular podcast and their culture-spanning stardom.
Following a playoff loss Monday night, it was reported that Jason Kelce informed teammates he plans to retire after 13 seasons and six All-Pro nominations with the Philadelphia Eagles. Travis and the Kansas City Chiefs play Sunday at Buffalo in the divisional round.
The Athletic spoke with more than fifteen of the Kelces’ former Bearcats teammates, coaches and roommates to reminisce about their stint at Cincinnati and its ongoing influence.
Also, the beer. So much beer.
The Kelces’ college careers coincided with the rise of Bearcats football, which won at least a share of the Big East championship in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012 and reached back-to-back BCS bowls in 2008 and 2009.
Jason arrived at Cincinnati in 2006 as a walk-on linebacker. After a redshirt season in which he earned the scout team defensive player of the year award, Jason switched to offensive line under new head coach Brian Kelly in 2007, where he became a multi-year starter and all-conference honoree.
Isaiah Pead (Cincinnati running back, 2008-11): It was Big Kelc. The younger guys didn’t call him Jason.
Craig Carey (Cincinnati linebacker, 2005-09): We were having a party after one of the games and Jason was a little bit inebriated, let’s say, and he ripped the sink out of the wall in one of the bathrooms. And everybody was like, “What the hell? Who is this guy? This walk-on just ripped the freaking sink out of the wall.”
Pead: He was an animal.
Carey: That’s how everybody knew him after that. Holy s—, this dude is nuts.
Reuben Johnson (Cincinnati cornerback, 2009-11): I just remember how fiery he was (on the field). Tight shirt, stomach out, bunch of body hair, drooling, sliming at the mouth, very intense.
Jason Kelce went from walk-on linebacker to star offensive lineman. (Courtesy of Cincinnati athletics)
Pead: Every time you saw him, he was on. It was so much, it was like, “Man, Big Kelc, are you always like this?”
Craig Parmenter (Cincinnati offensive lineman, 2007-10): Don’t poke the bear.
Reuben Johnson: We were in offense vs. defense (drills) and we were supposed to be in thud, so all it took was for one guy to go harder than he should, because no one was supposed to touch the ground.
Tom DeTemple (Cincinnati long snapper, 2007-11): You see this big scuffle go down and all of a sudden you just see somebody’s helmet get ripped off, and Jason starts spinning around with the helmet in his hand and shot-putted it 15 rows deep into the stadium.
Carey: He absolutely chucked that helmet.
Reuben Johnson: That was kind of the lion roaring. That set the tone.
Evan Davis (Cincinnati offensive lineman 2008-11): Jason looks for any and every opportunity to stir the pot and get somebody going.
Armon Binns (Cincinnati wide receiver, 2007-10): Everybody knew Jason, everyone respected the way he played.
Butch Jones (Cincinnati head coach, 2010-12): We were so competitive. The way we practiced, our effort, our mentality, our toughness — we were an extremely gritty football team, and a lot of that stemmed from Jason.
Parmenter: The thing with Jason, even off the field, if he finds something he likes, he’s determined to be the best at it.
Alex Hoffman (Cincinnati offensive lineman, 2007-11): Good guitar player, hell yeah. Good singer. He could pick up songs by ear and play them.
Parmenter: I couldn’t play Mario Kart against Jason because he was so godd— good at it.
Carey: He was obviously undersized as a player, but you could see how athletic he was and the way he moved compared to other linemen around him.
Reuben Johnson: Jason was pulling at center (as a run blocker). That’s when I realized this guy is not normal.
Binns: He’s like 285, 290 pounds, and we go out to do sprints at practice and he’s beating all the skill players. It’s ridiculous what kind of athlete he was.
Jones: Just as impressive is how cerebral he is.
Hoffman: He was on a weight-gain diet. We would make fun of Jason for being big, having long hair, eating all the time. He would always fall asleep while eating so we would roast him for that.
DeTemple: I think it was St. Patrick’s Day. We’re getting ready for spring practice and he goes and gets a Gatorade bottle and fills it up with Jameson. He puts a thing of tape around it and gives it to one of the water girls and says: “Do not give this to anybody but me.”
Hoffman: All he cared about was playing football and having a good time.
Greg Forest (Cincinnati quarterbacks coach, 2007-09): I would always say that after he got done playing, Jason was going to be in WWE.
Reuben Johnson: What made Jason so great is that he’s a live-in-the-moment guy. Whatever that moment calls for, that’s where he lives, that’s what he gives you.
Travis followed his older brother two years later, joining the Bearcats in 2008 as a 6-foot-6, two-star quarterback who also had scholarship offers to play Division I basketball. He saw the field as a wildcat quarterback as a redshirt freshman in 2009 before ultimately moving to tight end.
Tony Pike (Cincinnati quarterback, 2005-09): The brilliance of Travis is literally who he is: It’s his personality. He was so freaking funny, man.
Forest: He just likes to have fun more than anything.
Zach Collaros (Cincinnati quarterback, 2007-11): For some reason, my dumbass left the bills up to him, so I would pay him cash to pay the bills. One day we came home and the lights were all off. I’m like, “Yo, man. What’s going on?” He was like: “Yeah, I forgot.” We just didn’t have electricity for like three nights.
Sherry Murray (Cincinnati football office administrator, 2010-present): We always had the women’s Football 101, which was a fundraiser for breast cancer, and we would do a player fashion show as part of it. Travis, when it was his turn, he decided to strip at the top of the runway and walked down in his underwear, those compression shorts. So of course all 300 of these middle-aged women are hooting and hollering and carrying on. We decided that might be a good time to end the fashion show portion of this program.
Collaros: One Thanksgiving we just went and got two rotisserie chickens and we sat there and drank a 40 of Miller Lite and played NBA 2K.
Greg Davis (Evan’s dad): Always a jokester, always a comic. We were down at Party Source buying some stuff for the weekend and here comes Travis around the corner with a sombrero on, driving an electric shopping cart. And it’s filled, stuff piling out of the basket.
Evan Davis: He’s not scared to talk to anybody, he relates to everybody, he’s personable. It’s one thing to be all of those things, but you still have to go out and take a risk, and that’s Travis.
Travis Kelce, No. 18, and teammates celebrate defeating Duke in the Belk Bowl in 2012. (Brian Westerholt / Sports On Film / Cincinnati athletics)
Collaros: I’d always say to him: “Walk with your shoulders back. You’re the man.”
Reuben Johnson: Trav was cool, man. He was always stylish, always into fashion, always had the new sneakers.
Evan