Even when he was in middle school, Jake Butt was thinking about his future.
That’s when he approached his father, Rob, and the football junkie made an unusual request: tennis balls.
Butt followed his football hero, Michael Irvin, and learned in an online video that his magnetic hands came from a tennis-ball drill.
“I’d hold about six or seven balls, about three or four in each hand, and I’d just fire them at him one at a time as quick as possible,” Butt’s father said last week. “He’d just pop-pop-pop-pop, catching them.”
Next he wanted them split so he could tape the halves to his palms and learn to catch with his fingers.