A big family

Football is in the blood and bones of the Holt family, which has produced a whopping three Division I-A offensive linemen.

By JOHN C. COTEY
Published January 3, 2006

	[Times photo: William Dunkley]
	Abby and Joe Holt have produced quite the talented, and tall, offspring: Jarrod, 17, (6-foot-6, 315 pounds); Jon, 21, (6-7, 315); Joe Jr., 23, (6-5, 325); and "Little Guy" Jake, 14, (6-2, 165).

CLEARWATER The story should start on a football field, a blocking sled being shoved violently across dying grass, large bodies strewn about, blood and sweat mixing on the brow of an earnest young player.

Instead, it starts here: on a piano bench.

It's quiet. It's soft. It's demanding.

It starts with lessons, no exceptions. Everyone has to take them.

The story starts with learning how to sing, and how to act. Gymnastics classes. Tennis lessons. Competitive swimming. Driveway basketball games. Family camaraderie.

It starts, simply enough, with learning about topics such as math and English, respect and reverence, and most importantly, the value of family.

Only then can football become a consideration, and not until each son enters high school.

It's hard to argue with this method of producing good football players and even better men.

One son is at Virginia, another at North Carolina State and yet another headed to Duke this summer. A fourth shows all the promise of the three before him.

Many entire schools would be jealous of such production. At this Clearwater football factory, three Division I-A offensive linemen - all standing at least 6-foot-5 and weighing more than 300 pounds - have been produced in the last five years.

Welcome to the home of Joe and Abby Holt.

Fourth and 1, this is where you start.

There's Joe Jr.: 6-5, 325 pounds.

Jon: 6-7, 315 pounds.

Jarrod: 6-6, 315 pounds.

"Genetic wonders, I guess," Joe Jr. said.

Then there's Jake, an eighth-grader whom Abby calls her Little Guy.

In the Holt family, little is 6-2 and growing.

Jake is the only thing little about the Holt house.

Built 15 years ago, Joe Sr. had no idea it would someday house Pinellas County's best offensive line. But a big man himself, married to a 5-foot-11 wife, Joe Sr. played it safe.

A licensed contractor, he designed the hallways wider, the doorways taller, the rooms more spacious.

Joe Jr. said until he left home for Virginia, he had no idea just how good he had it.

"Our house was definitely built for comfort," he said. "When I first moved out, bathrooms were a real trip for me. The one we have at home is like a couch with a hole in it. It made all the other ones feel like I was in an airplane bathroom."

Some visitors might need a step stool to wash their hands.

"We're one of the few houses, at least in Pinellas County, that has 36-inch instead of 32-inch counter tops," Joe Sr. said. "... When people come to the house for first time, they are kind of surprised."

They shouldn't be.

It makes perfect sense that the Holt parents make them big.

* * *

In 1976, back when its senior class included 988 students, Clearwater High chose Abby Kennedy as its top female athlete. At 5-11, she could do it all, from leading her basketball team in scoring, her volleyball team in kills and winning the high jump at the county track and field championships.

At roughly the same time, Joe Holt was a 6-5, 300-pound offensive lineman for Oak Ridge High in Orlando, clearing paths for his running backs and one for himself to college.

They met in a hot tub, but the story is not nearly as sexy as that sounds. It was in an athletic training room on the campus of Furman University. Joe was soaking an ankle; Abby was on a nearby table getting one of hers taped.

Joe remembers the moment better than Abby. He was a junior, she was a sophomore, and while it may not have been love at first sight, it was certainly a "Hmmm, who is that?" moment.

Abby remembers meeting Joe at a sports banquet at a local church sometime later.

"The whole football team showed up," Abby recalled. "He sat near me. I said, "There you go, that's the guy for me."'

A hectic schedule made dating difficult. Things finally started to take off when they took a modern dance class together. Joe was walking on his hands in class and stole Abby's heart in the process.

"It got my attention, that's for sure," she said.

They married during grad school and moved back to Florida to be near family and to start their own.

"Dick Sheridan, who was my coach at Furman, when he heard we were engaged to be married, he said, "I'm guaranteeing scholarships for your sons ... right now!" Joe Sr. said.

"I guess that's how it all started."

* * *

The three oldest boys all starred on the football field at Clearwater High, where their dad is offensive line coach. Jake will be a Tornado next season and though smaller than his brothers and built more like a tight end, "give him time ... there's still hope," dad said, with a laugh.

Joe Jr., Jon and Jarrod were all named all-conference as juniors and seniors. Jon and Jarrod were named offensive line MVP in the county senior all-star game.

Joe Jr. says he was born to play football. Jon was ultra competitive. And Jarrod grew up as the Clearwater ball boy.

"I knew it when I was 6," Joe Jr. said. "That's what my dad did, and I was always the biggest kid in all my classes. When I figured out I could push the other fat guys around, I knew I was meant to be a lineman."

But none of the boys could play football until high school. They grew so fast they could never meet the weight requirements to play against kids their own age.

"We all wanted to play," Joe Jr. said. "But when I was 7, I would have had to play against 13-year-olds. That's crazy. So my parents always kept us away from that. By the time we all got to high school, we were biting at the bit to play."

Abby has heard all the jokes, about the difficulty in buying groceries, finding clothes and raising a group of little hulks. And she has been asked 100 times if giving birth was, well, painful.

She says each of her boys were long at birth, but hardly the size that would make the cover of a supermarket tabloid.

As an eighth-grader, however, Jarrod had to have a special desk made for him at Skycrest Christian School, as conventional desks weren't made for 6-3, 260-pound boys.

"I had to do that for all three of them," said Lee Cardia, the athletic director at Skycrest Christian for the past 32 years. "But Jarrod, he was the biggest kid of them all. We called him the Gentle Giant."

* * *

As much as Dad would have liked to see his sons in football uniforms, it was never a concern.

"They played just about every sport we had," Cardia said. "They were all good, quality kids, all very respectful, all very good students, all respectful and very coachable. You knew their priorities were classroom first. But you could also tell they had a father who spent a lot of time with them."

The Holt parents, both with masters degrees in education, found plenty of activities to fill their sons' lives.

The boys swam competitively. They dabbled in gymnastics. Weekend tennis lessons at 7 a.m. They played every sport but football.

And each started piano lessons at age 5.

Jarrod still takes lessons, and Jake might be the best player in the family.

Abby proudly points out that each boy passed his state tests with flying colors, playing a 10-piece program from memory.

"They are all excellent," said Largo's Shirley Hand, who has taught all four boys.

While one might expect an offensive lineman's meaty hands to get in the way of great classical music, Hand says the bigger the hand, the wider the range.

"You would think they would be clumsy, but Abby started them at a real young age," Hand said. "They don't have any trouble. Jake, he's playing Fur Elise fluently. Jarrod plays standard repertoire and Bach."

Abby is a firm believer that playing the piano provides benefits related to learning math, science and mastering discipline.

And besides, says Joe Jr., "Saying I'm a classically trained pianist takes the edge off being a big fat guy."

* * *

Family gatherings remain the highlight off the Holts' lives, even if it means juggling two shopping carts at the grocery store.

"A nightmare," said Abby, who prefers Sam's Club for her paper products but otherwise shops at the same places everyone else does.

Granted, not everyone needs a fleet of bag boys to help her load the car.

When the family was home recently for Christmas, Abby dropped more than $500 for a week's worth of groceries.

"I saw the receipt. It was ugly," Joe Jr. said. "A gallon of milk isn't making it through breakfast. We had seven dozen eggs in the fridge."

The family always found time to eat dinner together, even if that meant a quick 40-minute stopover for spaghetti between piano lessons and a football game.

Joe Jr. won't say who dominates the dinner table, but "let's put it this way: There's a reason Jake is so skinny."

All seem to bask in the glory of being, well, big.

Jarrod says trips to the mall with his brothers are a hoot, and the sight of a waitresses' eyes when they all walk into a restaurant is priceless.

Joe Jr. said that pales in comparison to elevator rides.

"When we all walk into an elevator together, you can just see people's eyes move to the wall where the weight limit is posted and (try to do the math in their head)," he said. "It's hilarious."

* * *

Joe Jr. no longer plays football, but in the spring he'll graduate with degrees in theater and psychology.

Jon is expected to be a full-time starter for the Wolfpack next season, his junior year, and may have a future in the NFL.

Jarrod, an aspiring thespian who recently starred in a high school play as Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, turned down Stanford and Notre Dame to commit to Duke.

"You really don't appreciate the job they did until you step back and look at it," Joe Jr. said. "It's pretty amazing the results. We've done it all and I'm going to let you know, it hasn't stopped. They are still hustling to keep me in line.

"'I don't know if (the piano lessons and gymnastics) were all part of some plan of theirs, but if it was, then God bless them."

[Last modified January 3, 2006, 01:57:16]