Yes, Joe Burrow has always been cool. Just ask his grandpa, a farmer in Southeast Nebraska | Football

Wayne Parde, a farmer in Johnson County in Southeast Nebraska, is the grandfather of perhaps the most popular person on the planet right now.

Part of what makes Joe Burrow so, well, cool is his smooth, effortless manner. He’s casual. He doesn’t force quirky answers in interviews or dance in the locker room in hopes of going viral. 

He just does. And it’s always been that way.

“He is just as cool at home as he is in his interviews. He’s Joe Cool,” Parde said.

Parde is a central figure in Burrow’s support system that has local roots. Burrow’s brothers, Jamie (1997-2001) and Dan (2000-04), both played football for the Huskers. Burrow has uncles in Lincoln and other family members scattered about in Hastings and Eagle.

Burrow’s mother, Robin, attended now-defunct Nemaha Valley High School and currently lives in Athens, Ohio, where Burrow grew up.

Parde has watched every Super Bowl, taking in many of them from a TV screen in rural Nebraska. But this week, he was on a flight from Kansas City to Los Angeles, where he will watch Burrow quarterback the Bengals against the hometown Rams in the game’s 56th installment.

Parde will be among an estimated group of 30 friends and family of Burrow traveling west. Some, like Parde, will watch the game inside the $5 billion SoFi Stadium, and others just want to soak in the spectacle. It is L.A., after all. 

“It’s pretty amazing,” Parde said. “We are lucky we can do it and afford this. Very few families can. We’re just having a great time.”

As he gears up for a game practically no one predicted he’d be playing in, Burrow is the center of attention. And not just in the sports world. Fashion blogs are writing about the sweaters and pink rimless sunglasses he’s worn to games. Access Hollywood was front-and-center at Burrow’s media availability last week, floating a question about celebrity crushes.

Burrow has the stage in this social-media-crazed generation, gaining steam — his Instagram page grew by more than 1 million followers since October — by dancing to hip-hop songs with his teammates, smoking cigars and donning flashy chains that match a pearly smile. 

Odell Beckham Jr., the universally-known Rams wide receiver, said of Burrow on Super Bowl Opening Night on Monday, “If you look up cool in the dictionary, there’s a picture of him with some Cartier shades.” 

Parde doesn’t have an Instagram account, so he follows Burrow around the country instead. Parde says he’s attended “seven or eight” games this season, including stops in Denver and Las Vegas.

The most notable trip was a road trip to Kansas City on Jan. 30 for the AFC Championship Game. A stadium that had been bragging about its decibel levels was minimized to a restless buzz when Evan McPherson trotted onto the Arrowhead Stadium turf for a game-winning field goal attempt in overtime.

“It was really quiet in there,” Parde recalls. “They knew they were in trouble.”

Sure enough, the sure-footed McPherson booted a 31-yard kick through the uprights to complete a Bengals rally that erased an 18-point deficit. Burrow, of course, was integral in the comeback effort, throwing a 41-yard touchdown pass right before halftime, then hooking up with Ja’Marr Chase for a 2-yard score late in the third quarter to tie the game.

In Burrow’s second season in the NFL, the Bengals clinched their first trip to the Super Bowl in more than 30 years. He’s looking to become the first quarterback to win a Heisman Trophy and national title in college, and a Super Bowl in the NFL.

Like most of us, Parde realized the potential of the Bengals, including a young core revolving around Burrow and running back Joe Mixon (both 25 years old) and wide receiver Chase, who is 21.

He just didn’t think it’d click so soon.

“I thought with the personnel and young team they have it would be another year or two,” Parde said. “They had their ups and downs (this season), but they have put everything together.”

Joe’s father, Jimmy Burrow, also has deep ties to the area. He played college football at Nebraska in the 1970s and served as a graduate assistant on Frank Solich’s Husker staff in 2001. 

Jimmy says he did at least a dozen media interviews last week prior to his Bengals-chartered flight to Los Angeles. He admits the game itself will be a “blur.” But it’s the time spent before the action — the flights, dinners and yes, probably a trip (or two) to the beach — that will forge lifelong memories.

“Yeah, it is crazy,” Jimmy said. “It’s a dream season, most people are surprised, but the least surprised people of them all is Joe. He truly expected to be in the playoffs and make a run.”

Jimmy is a lifelong football coach, the bulk of it spent at Ohio, where he served as defensive coordinator from 2005-18 under Solich. He watches his son’s games as if he’s evaluating film, and while there is plenty of conversation about Joe’s throwing acumen, Jimmy points to a trait Joe unlocked this season.

“He became more comfortable in running the football and escaping the pocket and extending the play,” Jimmy said. “He’s always had good leadership ability … there are so many good leaders on that football field, and that helps.”

As for Sunday’s game, the Bengals are four-point underdogs to the Rams. But the way Parde tells it, that’s just where Joe and his team want to be.

“I know Joe Burrow,” Parde says, “and he hates to lose.”