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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The neatly kept pink house on the corner of a quiet neighborhood just off I-95 near the Fort Lauderdale Airport shows no signs of the famous football player whose parents live there. Inside, Jean Pierre-Paul is sitting at a table chatting in Creole to his wife, Marie, about the events of the day as married couples do.
When a reporter knocks on the door, Marie answers through a window and asks in a soft, but assured voice what his purpose is. When told The Post wants to speak with the parents of Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul, she cautiously opens the door and flashes the kind of smile that all proud mothers flash.
“That’s my son,” she says.
It’s clear she is more agreeable to the interview and a few pictures than her husband Jean, who has been blind since Jason was eight months old. He is tall, fit and a man of strength, even without sight.
First, Marie must telephone her 24-year-old daughter, Nadie, to get assurance it is OK to be interviewed. Once an anonymous family simply trying to create their own American dream, the Pierre-Pauls are learning to live with not being so anonymous now that their son is in the Super Bowl.
“She says it’s OK,” Marie tells the reporter. “But I need to fix hair for pictures.”
There was a time Jason hid his involvement in football from his mother because he knew she was against him playing the sport. But that time has passed. The Pierre-Pauls will be in Indianapolis next Sunday when the Giants play the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI. It will be the first game in person Jean and Marie will see their son, nicknamed “JPP,” play as a Giant.
“Everything is good,” she says. “They’re in the Super Bowl. They’ve done a good job.”
The hullabaloo surrounding the Super Bowl is something Jean and Marie Pierre-Paul sense but is not that important to them. They are more about family than sports. It reflects in the home, which is warm and neat. But among the several photos adorning their living room, there is not a single picture of Jason in a Giants uniform.
Football is simply an occupation. Surviving is the ultimate victory.
Jean left the poverty and horrors of Haiti in 1983, landing in South Florida and taking whatever work he could find. He was eventually joined by his wife and oldest daughter three years later. Nadie, Jason and then Herbie were born in Deerfield Beach. But by then Jean’s vision had gone from blurriness to being legally blind. Doctors never found a real reason why.
It became a family fight for survival. Marie worked as a maid and housekeeper, and when Jason was old enough he worked, too.
“I had a lot of different jobs,” Jason Pierre-Paul said yesterday at the Giants training facility in East Rutherford. “We had bills to pay. My dad wasn’t working, and it was tough for my mom. People were always raising the rent, so I had to work, too. Everybody in the house worked to pay the rent.”
JPP was the only one in his family with a passion for sports, but even he knew nothing of the Super Bowl. His sport was basketball, or at least he thought it was until he met Manny Martin, the defensive coordinator at Deerfield Beach High School.
Until landing in Martin’s geometry class his junior year, Pierre-Paul had no intention of playing football. Martin’s arm twist was essentially this: “If you want to pass this class, you’re going to play some football.”
Pierre-Paul began practicing with the team that day, though his parents were the last to know. He already had injured his leg three times, the last coming his sophomore year when he landed awkwardly while dunking a basketball. Pierre-Paul feared his parents might not approve of him playing football.
“I had to hide it for a little bit because I knew my mom wasn’t going to let me play it,” Pierre-Paul said.
To this day, he calls his mother after games to reassure her that he’s fine.
“He calls me and everything is OK,” she said. “After game he calls. During [the] week he calls. Everything OK.”
Jason figured this football thing might work during his junior year in high school when Deerfield reached the state championship game with future Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson as a teammate. But his focus wasn’t always what it should have been. He missed summer practices because of work and he struggled academically, failing to pass the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test to get a diploma.
“He graduated with a certificate of attendance,” Martin said. “The means you basically went to school for 13 years and didn’t get anything.”
It was then Martin looked Jason Pierre-Paul in the eye and told him of his responsibility to himself and his family and the possibilities his talent could bring.
“If you ever get your head together and do what you need to do for the next three years, you’ll be able to take care of your family for the rest of their lives,” Martin told the youngster.
By the time Jason Paul-Pierre finished at Fort Scott (Kansas) Community College, he had earned the equivalent of his high school diploma and an associate degree. After one year at South Florida where he collected 16 ¹/₂ sacks, the Giants made him their first-round draft pick in 2010. In his second NFL season, he was named to the Pro Bowl after collecting 16 ¹/₂ sacks during the regular season.
“At South Florida, that’s where it really clicked and I knew I had a chance of making it here,” Pierre-Paul said. “I’m stable now and I can actually learn the defense and adjust. I don’t have to worry about myself moving anywhere.”
Pierre-Paul is the pride of Deerfield Beach High School these days, especially this week.
“He was a different kind of kid,” said Vincent Tozzi, the athletic director at Deerfield, as he leans against the gate of Butler Stadium. “This was the kind of kid who had to work for everything he’s got. It wasn’t easy. Like a lot of kids he worked to support his family.”
One of Pierre-Paul’s teachers, Michelle Scott, described him this way: “He was humble and well mannered. He’s a deserving young man. We’re proud of him.”
So is his former coach: “For these kids to get out of here, they just need an opportunity,” Martin said. “That’s what he had. He took my advice and focused and buckled down for those next years at Fort Scott, then South Florida and then the Giants. He just took it and ran away with it.”
Pierre-Paul, who signed a five-year $20 million deal as a rookie, drove a 1996 Grand Marquis in high school. Now he rides a BMW 750, because “you have to do something for yourself.” One of his first tasks after the Super Bowl is to buy his mother and father a new home.
“I want her to pick a house, but I need to see it,” Pierre-Paul said. “She almost paid for a house but the house wasn’t all that. She finally decided she didn’t like it either because it didn’t have a big master bedroom. I told her when I come down I’ll pick the house, because if I pick the house I know it’s going to be good and she’ll like it.”
Having his parents at the Super Bowl means a lot to Pierre-Paul, though he says his father won’t like all of the noise.
“My mom and dad taught me a lot,” he said. “They kept me out of trouble and told me to go a better route. They taught me how to be a man, basically. We moved from place to place and it was hard to adjust to different schools. But we made it.”
All the way to the Super Bowl.