From Pizza Delivery to Defensive Dynasty
On a frigid Wisconsin morning in 2008, a 19-year-old Justin James Watt dragged himself out of bed at 5:30 AM. Not for football practice. Not for weight training. But to deliver pizzas – a humbling detour for a kid who’d been declaring since age seven that he was destined for NFL greatness.
The former Central Michigan tight end had walked away from his scholarship, gambling everything on a wild dream to play defensive end for his beloved Wisconsin Badgers—as a walk-on, no less. Between pizza deliveries, he trained obsessively with former UW offensive tackle Joe Panos, transforming his body and his future in the process.
“Success isn’t owned. It’s leased and rent is due every day,” Watt would later famously say. For J.J. Watt, that rent has always been paid in sweat.
J.J. Watt: The Making of a Monster
Before he became the 6’5″, 290-pound wrecking ball with 11⅛-inch hands who terrorized NFL quarterbacks, young J.J. had his sights set on a different kind of ice. Hockey was his first passion, a sport he began at age three and pursued seriously until he was 13, competing on travel teams in Canada and Germany.
But even then, football’s siren call was strong.
“At seven years old, he stood in our kitchen and announced he was going to be a professional football player,” recalls his mother, Connie Watt, who serves as president of the J.J. Watt Foundation. “We didn’t discourage him, but we made sure he understood how much work that would take.”
Work has never been an issue in the Watt household. His father John spent nearly three decades as a firefighter in Pewaukee, while Connie climbed the corporate ladder as a building operations vice president. In their home, “act like somebody” wasn’t just fatherly advice – it was the family mantra delivered daily before school.
And if you were wondering what “on time” meant in the Watt family: it meant arriving 15 minutes early. Always.
This wasn’t just any athletic family, either. J.J. Watt and his younger brothers Derek and T.J. were relentlessly competitive, shoveling neighbors’ driveways in winter, raking leaves in fall, and breaking their dad’s high school track records for good measure. All three would eventually reach the NFL – a statistical miracle and testament to the environment that forged them.
The Road Less Travelled
At Pewaukee High School, J.J. Watt was an athletic marvel, lettering in four sports and winning the 2007 state championship in shot put with a school record heave of nearly 60 feet. Yet college recruiters weren’t exactly beating down his door – he was rated just a two-star prospect.
Central Michigan offered him a scholarship to play tight end, a position he accepted with his characteristic determination. But after one season and a suggestion that he switch to offensive tackle, Watt made the decision that would define his career: leave his scholarship behind, move back home, and walk on at Wisconsin to play defensive end.
“It was the scariest decision I’ve ever made,” Watt told CBS Sports. “I’m giving up a scholarship… to go walk on and potentially never see the field.”
Between delivering pizzas and demolishing weights, Watt remade himself. When he finally took the field for the Badgers in 2009 after a redshirt year – on scholarship again, having impressed coaches before even playing a down – he was a different animal entirely.
By 2010, he had become one of college football’s most dominant defenders, racking up 21 tackles for loss and seven sacks while winning the Ronnie Lott Trophy. The transformation was so complete that by the time the 2011 NFL Draft rolled around, the only question was how high he would go.
The Texans’ Savior
When the Houston Texans selected J.J. Watt with the 11th overall pick in 2011, the reaction at the team’s draft party was decidedly mixed. Some fans booed. Others scratched their heads. – “Who?” ….. They’d know soon enough.
While his rookie season showed promise – 5.5 sacks and an All-Rookie team selection – it was a playoff moment that announced J.J. Watt to the world. In the AFC Wild Card game against Cincinnati, Watt snatched a pass out of midair and rumbled 29 yards for a touchdown, sending the stadium into delirium and the Texans to their first playoff victory in franchise history.
It was just the appetizer.
The 2012 season saw J.J. Watt unleash one of the most dominant defensive campaigns in NFL history. He led the league with 20.5 sacks, batted away 16 passes (an NFL record for a defensive lineman), and earned his first Defensive Player of the Year award by receiving 49 of 50 possible votes.
“Never be happy with just good,” Watt once said. He certainly wasn’t.
The accolades piled up faster than his quarterback sacks: five Pro Bowls, five First-Team All-Pro selections, and an unprecedented three Defensive Player of the Year awards (2012, 2014, 2015). When he wasn’t sacking quarterbacks, he was catching touchdowns in goal-line packages or returning interceptions to the end zone. In 2014, he even finished second in MVP voting – a nearly impossible feat for a defensive player.
Beyond the Gridiron
For all his on-field ferocity, it’s perhaps Watt’s work off the field that will define his legacy most powerfully.
While still a college student, he established the J.J. Watt Foundation, which provides after-school athletic opportunities for middle school children. The foundation has supported over 150 schools with equipment, uniforms, and transportation—building character through sport just as J.J. had experienced in his youth.
But it was in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in 2017 that J.J. Watt transcended sports entirely. What began as a modest fundraising goal of $200,000 for hurricane relief became a viral phenomenon, eventually raising an astonishing $41.6 million. Watt didn’t just write checks; he was on the ground, helping distribute supplies to devastated communities.
“[J.J.] has always been grateful for the opportunities provided to him,” his foundation website states, “and has made it his mission to pay it forward to the younger generation.”
That mission extended to other tragedies as well. Following the Santa Fe High School shooting in 2018, J.J. Watt quietly paid for the victims’ funeral expenses and visited survivors in the hospital. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he donated $350,000 to the Houston Food Bank.
His humanitarian efforts earned him the prestigious Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award in 2017, cementing his status as not just a great player, but a great human being.
The Man Behind the Monster
Despite his fearsome on-field persona, those who know Watt describe a different man entirely: dedicated, thoughtful, and surprisingly normal.
In February 2020, he married professional soccer player Kealia Ohai, whom he met through his former teammate Brian Cushing. Their first child arrived in October 2022, just as Watt was preparing to close the chapter on his playing career.
Throughout it all, family has remained his cornerstone. His brothers Derek and T.J. followed his path to Wisconsin and then to the NFL, with T.J. emerging as a dominant defensive force for the Pittsburgh Steelers. In 2020, the three brothers made history by all playing in the same NFL game when the Texans faced the Steelers.
“I hope to make you proud of me on the field as well as off the field by helping the kids in the community have the same opportunities that were afforded to me,” Watt once said, a statement that encapsulates both his gratitude and his mission.
The Legacy of J.J. Watt
When J.J. Watt retired after the 2022 season, he left behind staggering numbers: 114.5 career sacks, 586 tackles, 27 forced fumbles, and 17 fumble recoveries. He joined CBS’s “The NFL Today” as an analyst, bringing his keen football mind to viewers across America.
But numbers and television appearances don’t capture the essence of J.J. Watt’s impact. From the skinny kid delivering pizzas while chasing a seemingly impossible dream to the three-time Defensive Player of the Year who raised over $41 million for hurricane relief, J.J. Watt’s journey exemplifies something beyond athletic excellence.
It’s about the kid who grew up watching Reggie White and dared to believe he could be just as good. It’s about the college student who walked away from a sure thing to bet on himself. It’s about the broken player who rebuilt his body not once, but multiple times, defying medical expectations. And it’s about the man who, at the height of his fame and success, never forgot where he came from or what truly matters.
“Greatness is earned, not given,” Watt often says. Through two-star recruiting rankings, pizza deliveries, devastating injuries, and triumphant comebacks, J.J. Watt has earned every ounce of his. – The rent, as they say, is paid in full.
If you found J.J. Watt’s comeback journey inspiring, you won’t want to miss our feature on another NFL warrior who redefined resilience. In “Alex Smith: A Miracle of Resilience – Overcoming the Unimaginable,” we chronicle the quarterback’s harrowing fight back from a catastrophic leg injury that required 17 surgeries and nearly cost him his life. Like Watt, Smith’s story transcends sports, reminding us what’s possible when the human spirit refuses to surrender.
Photo by: Jeffrey Beall – This image has been extracted from archive, CC BY-SA 3.0,
