Two weeks ago, at one point, as Jim Burrow was sorting through the relentless stream of messages arriving on his phone after his son, Joe, led the Cincinnati Bengals to a dramatic win over the Kansas City Chiefs in of the AFC Championship match. , he opened a text from former Washington State coach Jim Walden.

Message from Walden: “Okay, what’s the bigger experience, running 15 games and winning the Heisman and the national championship or making the Super Bowl?”

Jim Burrow’s response: “Well, economically, I think the best deal might be to go through the Super Bowl.”

Walden doesn’t have too many Joe Burrow stories, if at all. The rising Bengals quarterback was born in 1996, two years after Walden retired from football after an eight-year stint as head coach at Iowa State. But Walden is nothing less than an encyclopedia when it comes to Burrow’s extended family, and might even deserve a little branch on the family tree.

He and the Burrows go way back to the early 1960s when Walden, a new high school coach in the sparsely populated town of Armory, Mississippi, moved in next door to James Burrow – grandfather of the Super Bowl-bound flagman – along with his sixth grade son, Jim and another son, Danny.

“In total, I think between living next door and the end of the 1994 training season, Jim was with me and around me for 23 years,” said Walden, a native of Aberdeen, Mississippi. “So our trip has been, to say the least, quite fun.”

And improving day by day.

There’s no telling where the Heisman Trophy winner and first draft pick would be without the experience, wisdom and genetic gifts passed down from his father. Similarly, Jim’s career as a player and coach would be dramatically different if Walden never entered the picture.

Walden and Jim had daily skirmishes as next door neighbors and the former Canadian league quarterback turned high school coach saw something special in the young lad when Jim finally joined the varsity team at Armory. Walden left to join the Nebraska staff as a graduate assistant and after learning that Ole Miss had only offered his former high school player a starting spot, he urged the Huskers to take Jim as a defensive back. scholarship.

“I felt in that moment that he could come in and play as a defensive back, as good as any we had,” Walden said. “And he had to take a year off, which was perfect because we needed a quarterback on the scout team and Jimmy had played quarterback in high school. I knew he could do it and half the teams were using the triangle in those days so he didn’t need to have a lot of throwing skills. Not that he couldn’t. … Then, true to form, he made the All-Big 8 two years in a row as a defensive safety.

Joe Burrow’s athletic gifts, competitive drive and boundless confidence may come from his father, a former Green Bay Packers draft pick, but his grandfather, James, was a scholarship basketball player in the State of Mississippi from 1948 to 1952 and his grandmother, Dot, probably laid claim to the most impressive athletic achievement submitted by any Burrow until Joe won a Heisman and a national title at LSU.

A prep basketball phenom in Smithville, Mississippi, who played in an era when high school girls were still competing on a half-court, 3-on-3, Dot once scored a state-record 72 points in a single game. , only to trump that number by scoring 82 later in the same season.

“I remember when Jimmy Burrow was in eighth grade, he couldn’t beat his mom at a horse game in the backyard,” Walden said. “That’s how good she was. Joe comes from a good stock on the Burrow side, let’s put it that way.

Historians have chronicled Dot Burrow’s record-breaking high school basketball career and national reporters have spent the past two weeks rehashing the eye-popping numbers produced by her grandson in a season that saw Joe go for 4 611 yards and 34 touchdowns while leading the Bengals to a Super Bowl berth in a season many expected to miss the playoffs.

In a phone interview earlier this week, Walden revealed another story that highlights the athletic excellence of the Burrow family. It’s a Jim Burrow story, a Washington State story and, above all, a racquetball story.

During breaks in Jim’s career in the Canadian Football League, the former Nebraska goaltender would spend time at Pullman as it provided a productive offseason coaching environment and several of his former coaches had accepted jobs in Washington State. Warren Powers, the former DB coach at Nebraska, had become the Cougars head coach in 1977 and Walden was an offensive backfield coach before replacing Powers in 1978.

“Jim Burrow was just as humble and kind as his kid,” said former WSU coach Mike Price, running backs coach at Pullman from 1974 to 1977. “Really, really great people.”

After Jim’s CFL career ended, he joined Walden’s staff as a tight ends coach in 1981 before moving into a more natural role coaching Cougar defensive backs from 1982 to 1986. There was no basketball at noon these days, but three times a week a small group of WSU coaches, including Walden, Burrow, Dave Elliott and Gary Gagnon, met for basketball games. semi-competitive racquetball.

Walden recalled, “(Jim) was always my partner because he was so much better than all of us that I dragged him down, so that made him even.”

On the rare occasion that Walden would accept a singles match, Jim playfully teased his boss by resting against the back wall, rather than settling into an athletic position that would give him the best chance of returning the serve.

“I would look over there and he’s leaning against the wall,” Walden said. “I said, ‘Damn Jimmy, you’re the assistant coach and I’m the head coach, you could at least show me enough respect to look like you thought I’d get a point.

One of the state’s racquetball champions happened to be living in Pullman at the time and quickly discovered Burrow’s talent. In an area of ​​the state where competitive racquetball players didn’t exactly fall from trees, he sometimes invited Burrow to practice.

“I’m telling you, you put him on a racquetball court and he’s going to wear you out. I used to say he could have gotten into this as a pro,” Walden said. “But he could beat the state champion from Washington State. I know for a fact, that’s how good an athlete he was. His son Joey comes naturally, trust me.

Walden keeps in touch with Jim regularly, calling every few months and texting after nearly every Bengals game — “win or lose,” he assured. Although he doesn’t know Joe Burrow directly, the former WSU coach expects to swell with pride when Cincinnati’s No. 9 jersey rolls out of the tunnel ahead of Sunday’s game.

“His dad (James Burrow) was my boss as superintendent/manager. I’ve known him since 1964,” Walden said. “It’s just an amazing thing and seeing him win a Heisman trophy first, going 15-0 – to see all of that, going through Ohio State, I don’t think Joe would call it a test, but it was a process. Now to see him here enter the Super Bowl is almost like magic if you really want to know the truth.

Like Walden, Price will also watch Sunday’s game from his Coeur d’Alene home, though his rooting interests are slightly more complicated. He’s also a Burrow fan who spent time getting to know Jim on the Palouse, but he’s also fond of Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp.

Price, a reserve quarterback at WSU in the 1960s who ended his career at the University of Puget Sound, remembers seeing Kupp’s grandfather, Jake, play for interstate rival Washington. .

“I remember he was a great player, a big lanky old guy,” Price said. “He was starting and I don’t even know if I played. I was on the bench. »

Jake Kupp’s relationship with UW is Price’s only explanation for why the Cougars didn’t sign his grandson, who went on to become an FCS All-American east of Washington and generally had his best performances ever. receiving for Pac-12 opponents, including a 206-yarder. , three touchdowns against the Cougars in 2016.

“Why didn’t we recruit Kupp? The price said. “The only thing I remember is his dad was a Husky, maybe that’s why we didn’t sign him.”

Price knew Kupp when he was a coach at UTEP and remembers watching the product’s high school movie Davis High (Yakima). Since then, the All-Pro wide has become a role model for hundreds of high school players with similar backgrounds to Kupp, including one of Price’s grandsons, Davis Fry, who also plays prep football in the Washington center – College Place in Walla Walla – and has height/weight measurements comparable to the Rams player.

“It’s pretty cool for me, too, because now I’m a grandfather to a high school player who wants to be like Cooper Kupp and gets drafted by Idaho and Eastern,” Price said.

Walden’s Super Bowl interests are staked by Burrow and the Bengals, but the former WSU coach who spent much of his post-football life in eastern Washington and northern Idaho has also an affinity for Kupp.

“You’re talking about showing people how to do it from a little one-horse college here in Eastern and coming out on the big stage and doing what he’s doing is just phenomenal,” Walden said. .