On his way to defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul’s hospital room shortly after the All-Pro lost the better part of three fingers on his right hand during a gruesome Fourth of July fireworks accident in 2015, Michael Alessi wondered whether his friend and personal training client might have finally exhausted the tank of energy and positivity that had carried him through a challenging life.
Then he saw Pierre-Paul in his room, flashing a knowing grin as he held up a training resistance band—the kind that he used to roll his eyes at during his monotonous warm-up exercises with Alessi. Pierre-Paul had someone smuggle them into Jackson Memorial in Miami, where he was staying under a pseudonym to filter out visitors. The slice of privacy allowed him to wander the hallways doing hip and leg openers. He also chugged up and down the stairs to keep in shape.
“It was a slap upside the head; it was an awakening for me to see him smiling,” Alessi says. “He’s all, ‘Hey! Mike! Good to see you man! How are you doing?’ And I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to walk into this room, and we’re going to be doom and gloom.’ I couldn’t believe this man was smiling and having fun.”
This outlook is not anything new for the 32-year-old Pierre-Paul. Scroll through his constantly curated, patched-up-and-torn-down Instagram page and he appears very much a man of the times; the kind of person who crashes into mindfulness and emotional stability after a period of great tumult—in this case, a horrifying explosion that nearly cost him his hand, followed by a broken neck resulting from a May 2019 car accident, the latter of which actually warranted a rehabilitation process more difficult and precarious than heavy weight training with seven and a half fingers. He’ll post things like or…. Had JPP not been a star pass rusher, he might have become a 6' 2", 275-pound author of inspirational posters. His prized possession is a plaque that hangs on the wall of his home office that says “Beat the Odds.”
This season Pierre-Paul earned his first Pro Bowl nod since 2012, when he was with the New York Giants, and he has been a key part of a Tampa Bay defense that was rated sixth in the NFL this year. He had 9 ½ regular season sacks and another two in the NFC championship game against Green Bay, when he also forced two fumbles. But this season is not necessarily some peak on his narrative arc for Pierre-Paul. Instead, it’s a time for others to appreciate a player who has always shown the ability to weather storms with a convivial disposition.
In a lot of ways, the 2020 Buccaneers are like many of the stops along Pierre-Paul’s trajectory, in that they may have benefited more from the tao of Pierre-Paul than the other way around. From his upbringing in Florida to multiple stops at spartan community colleges, to the hospital where his career almost ended, people mostly remember his smile, even if Pierre-Paul was the one in need of help.
“Resilience to me is never giving up, being there for somebody when they truly need you and just being yourself even when its good times or bad times, you’re just the same person never changing,” he said days before the Super Bowl. “I done been through a lot man, but the things I go through, I just think those happy thoughts.”
