Image courtesy of Jermaine Wiggins Jr. /Twitter

If you’re a father and your family business in football, odds are you want your kids to follow in your footsteps.

Jermaine Wiggins – former Patriots, Vikings, Jets, Colts, Panthers and Jaguars tight end turned 98.5 The Sports Hub and then 93.7 WEEI radio personality – is getting to live that dream right now.

This week, Wiggins’ son Jermaine Jr. – a senior on the Central Catholic football team – committed to do a PG year at Bridgton Academy in Maine, the same place his dad went prior to going to Marshall and then Georgia. Wiggins also has a young son Jaden who will surely be a highly recruited member of the 2023 class.

“It’s pretty cool, I think it’s going to be a good year for him,” Wiggins said in a phone interview Friday morning. “I think it’ll be a good year for him to really grow as a student. Being away from home, live on his own and kind of learn the process of what it’s going to be like when he eventually does go to college.”

Wiggins talked about what he believes made it a right fit for both him and now his son years later.

“I think the biggest thing for me and what will be good for him is learning how to manage things on your own,” he said. “How to prepare yourself, organizing, time management. He won’t have me or his mother there the same way I didn’t have mine there when I went to Bridgton, so it really teaches you how to grow up quick.”

The recruiting process has been turned upside down as we’ve discussed on this site numerous times since August. Having knowledge of the Bridgton campus certainly helped Jermaine and Jermaine Jr., but that doesn’t mean that it still wasn’t a stressful process with Covid throwing everything off.

“It affected him – like a lot of other kids – because he was talking to different schools, he had different prospect camps that he could’ve looked into, schools coming to visit, all of that,” Wiggins explained. “On the flip side, I think it actually made the decision to PG easier because he can still do the things you want to do when you’re trying to play college football after he does the PG year. A lot of kids have to make that decision and obviously it’s an even tougher decision now.”

Before Wiggins Jr. heads to Maine, he’s still got a senior year of football left to play at Central Catholic. Everyone in the football community has doubts and some worries about how a February season will work, but having played for East Boston High School and then several cold weather cities in his NFL career, Wiggins doesn’t think the kids will care where or when they play, as long as they’re playing.

“At least it looks like they’re going to play this makeshift season in February,” he said. “I feel bad for the seniors who didn’t get to have a regular season because it probably hurt their opportunity with schools. For some of those guys, playing in February or March you’ll still be able to use that film if you decide to PG or whatever, so there’s a bright side to it to some degree.

“I don’t think the weather will affect them. You can still get some pretty decent days in February and March and if it was a normal season they’d be playing in November and December anyways, so I just think they’re going to be happy to be out there. There’s a  lot of talented players in Massachusetts and I think coaches around the country are starting to notice more than they have in the past, so it’s good kids will be able to get out there and show it this year.”

I couldn’t let Wiggy go without bringing up the fact that the first Super Bowl team in 2001 helped lay the foundation for what is now Gillette Stadium and Patriot Place. Despite playing in some huge games on the biggest stages, as an East Boston kid, even Wiggins is still surprised what the franchise has turned into in the last 20 years.

“I grew up with the old Sullivan Stadium and Foxborough Stadium when the teams were terrible and no one wanted to go, those early 90’s teams,” he said. “Now that place is an event, even if you aren’t going to a game. You just go down there on game day or any other day of the week to see the movie theatre or the stores and the restaurants they have around there, it’s a pretty cool thing. The fact we get to enjoy a team – unfortunately this year they’re behind the eight ball a bit – but a team that’s pretty much competitive every single year is something as a fan you can’t take for granted.”