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He is one of the ours, a Long Island boy who grew up a Jets fan, whose father and grandfather were Jets fans, with this precious chance to live out his dream of playing for his hometown team.
A New York dream that has been enveloped in a New York nightmare that is ravaging his city.
“It’s a very bizarre time,” Greg Van Roten told The Post. “I was talking to my granny [Janet] last week, seeing how she’s doing ’cause she’s alone right now — she lives in Connecticut [in the Hartford area], so it’s not like a super-safe place, but it’s safer than New York at least. … And I was just like, ‘Have you ever experienced anything like this in your lifetime?’ … She’s in her late 80s, born at the end of the Depression, World War II, all that stuff. … And she’s like, ‘Nope. This is the first time.’ And I was like, ‘That’s pretty wild.’ When you have someone who had that historical perspective saying that this is brand new to them.
“She likened the fear to polio, but this is a little bit different.
“To have that going on while you’re living out your dream, it’s a very surreal, interesting, strange backdrop.”
His parents, Tom and Cathy, have settled in Bluffton, S.C. They have no idea when they can see him next. Van Roten, who is currently living in Long Beach, is scheduled to be married to his fiancée Trish at the Heritage Club in Bethpage, L.I., on July 10, but who knows whether COVID-19 will allow that happen now?
Greg Van RotenAP“It’s pretty scary,” Van Roten said. “I think people are finally starting to kind of take it seriously. At first everyone was like, ‘Can’t believe they’re canceling sports,’ and then you’re kind of seeing how recklessly and quickly this thing is transferable and the damage it can do.
“I feel like everybody in New York knows somebody that has it, think they have it or has been affected by it.
“I’ve had buddies whose grandparents have passed away and they can’t have like a real funeral.
“It’s a really tough thing to have to deal with. It makes sports take a backseat. This is really affecting people in their personal life. So we need to take it seriously and find ways to not overwhelm the medical system. I have friends that are nurses that are dealing with this.… It’s definitely scary.”
What should have been a Happy Homecoming for a tough, smart local kid who persevered against long odds has turned now into a Bittersweet Homecoming at best.
“If you get sick this time of year, whether it’s allergies or a cold,” Van Roten said, “everyone’s like, ‘Oh, I think I have coronavirus.’ There’s that fear, right? That’s kind of permeating through everything right now. It’s weird, if you watch like a TV show or something that’s old, you see people shaking hands — you’re not supposed to do that. You should be elbow bumping, or whatever.”
Life was so much simpler when Van Roten was growing up in Rockville Centre. It is much easier for Van Roten to think back to the sweet, innocent days of his youth, when his father, a Jets season ticket holder for a dozen years or so during the New York Sack Exchange years, would take his son to Hofstra to watch his dream team, and of course Wayne Chrebet caught his eye, and Vinny Testaverde and Kevin Mawae were favorites, too. “He couldn’t believe how big the guys were,” Tom told The Post.
Long before Chaminade High School, before Penn, before the Packers and the Seahawks and the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts and the Jaguars and the Panthers, long before his 30th birthday, there lived a fifth grade elementary school child with a grownup dream chronicled in a yearbook.
“He said he wanted to be a professional football player,” Cathy told the Post. “That’s when he was 10. So he’s kind of been thinking about this for a long time.”
They were proud parents when he realized his Jets dream.
“I can’t believe you’re playing for the Jets, and I live in [bleeping] South Carolina!” Greg remembers his father saying.
They have no immediate plans to come north.
“Originally, two weeks from now, is supposed to be the bridal shower, and I was planning on going up to the bridal shower in Roslyn. … And it got rescheduled for June, but that’s questionable with what’s going on,” Cathy said. “So I honestly don’t know. Other than FaceTime, that’ll be it, until we’re able to travel.”
A New York dream enveloped in a New York nightmare.
