PEWAUKEE, Wis. — The Watt brothers have always been competitive — with others ideally, with each other when necessary — whether playing their first love, hockey; their current sport, football; or their family pastime of shinny, a pickup hockey game that is specific to their basement.
And for decades, the Watt family has had a firm grasp on the shot-put record at Pewaukee High School.
The first to set the mark was John Watt, with a throw of 54 feet 5 ½ inches in 1980. In 2007, his son J. J. threw the shot 59-11 ¾. Six years later, another son, T. J., hurled it 60- ½.
John’s middle son, Derek, never held the record — officially. At the 2011 state championship in La Crosse, Derek threw the shot more than 60 feet, only to be scratched.
“I just gave it everything I got and — allegedly — my heel hit the toe board,” Derek said last month, his tone failing to mask his bitterness.
T. J. is 6 feet 5 inches and 247 pounds, and J. J. is 6-5 and 289 pounds (at birth, he was 9 pounds 14 ounces). At 6-2 and 236 pounds, Derek is the smallest of the brothers.
The brothers as children at the Watt family home in Pewaukee, Wis.CreditLauren Justice for The New York Times
“So mine’s more impressive,” a smiling Derek said of his throw.
On Saturday night, the Watts’ parents, John and Connie, will be in Indianapolis as Derek, a redshirt junior fullback, and T. J., a redshirt freshman tight end sidelined by knee surgery, and their No. 11 Wisconsin Badgers (10-2) face No. 6 Ohio State (11-1) for the Big Ten championship.
Then, on Sunday, they will watch J. J., a defensive end who is among the top players in the N.F.L., lead the Houston Texans against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
J. J., whom Houston drafted in the first round months before Derek arrived at Wisconsin, was named defensive player of the year in 2012, his second N.F.L. season, tallying 20 ½ sacks. This season, he has scored touchdowns on a fumble recovery and an interception, as well as on offense. A few months ago, he signed a contract extension worth $100 million over six years.
Derek, 22, and T. J., 20, get plenty of attention because of the accomplishments of their older brother.
“People may think that he puts on a front,” T. J. said, “that a lot of the quotes and special things he does are not who he actually is, and we do feel a little bit of a responsibility to tell people that that’s actually who he is.”
When asked about his brothers, J. J. does not mention their athletic prowess. Although they watch each other’s games, they don’t talk about football as if they were reviewing game film.
“The thing I’m most proud of is the way they handle themselves,” J. J., 25, said in a telephone interview. “People were trying to say how they get recognition through their name, to see how they handle it. It would be very easy for them to be upset at those people. They don’t let it bother them.”
To find out what is in the Watt family water, one needs to visit Pewaukee, a city of 13,000 a little west of Milwaukee and about an hour east of Madison. The thing to focus on, though, might not be the water so much as the chicken fried rice that is John’s specialty and the mostaccioli that is Connie’s.
“We’re not very good cooks, but we can cook in quantity,” said John, 52, a former firefighter.
The Watts would serve their three sons an early dinner around 4:30 p.m., after they were finished practicing or working out, and a second dinner around 8. They also packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for them to munch on between classes and always cooked hot breakfasts.
“They were burning so many calories,” said Connie, 45, a retired vice president for a building-inspection company. “It wasn’t to try to get them to the N.F.L. or next level. It was just trying to take care of them.”
If the brothers were a boy band, J. J. would be the leader, T. J. would be the one who gets some of the best solos and Derek would be the mischievous cult favorite.
“Derek is very smart, very calculated, very diligent,” J. J. said of his brother, a marketing major. “One of those guys that sticks to his schedule. He’s probably the smartest of us three.”
Connie recalled that Derek would wake up on Saturdays and do homework while his brothers watched cartoons. On cruises (the family still takes one every year, even though one Watt has become a famous athlete), J. J. and T. J. tend to head to the cabin after dinner while Derek goes to find the people he met during the day.
John and J. J. said T. J. is shy. J. J. also described T. J. as nostalgic and goofy.
“J. J. and T. .J. are alike in a lot of ways — in their personalities, in their body frames,” said Mike Lecher, a defensive coach at Pewaukee High who had all three Watt boys as well as their father in his charge at one time or another.
John and Connie live in the same yellow Victorian they moved into a dozen years ago so they did not have to drive J. J. across town to 6 a.m. football practices. Proximity remains important. Lecher said he recently saw J. J. emerge from the Pewaukee High weight room around 5 a.m.; he had a golf tournament in Madison to attend later in the day.
J.J. Watt playing for the Houston Texans on Sunday against Tampa Bay.CreditScott Halleran/Getty Images
J. J.’s focus on conditioning and improvement is well known. His brothers share it, and by several accounts, that traces back to their father.
Clay Iverson, who coached J. J., Derek and T. J. at Pewaukee High, said: “Didn’t take long to find out these were special young men.”
John “made sure that those kids worked hard,” Iverson said.
As John said: “My saying has always been, ‘I don’t expect you to be perfect, but I always expect you to try to be perfect.’ ”
J. J. recently took his brothers on a makeshift grand tour of Europe that was probably different from most people’s vacations.
“We never really got adjusted to the time change,” J. J. said. “We ran down the Champs-Élysées at 3 a.m. Worked out at 2 in the morning.”
“The cool part,” J. J. added, was that they wanted to work out “just as hard as I do, even though the Eiffel Tower or gelato is just down the road.”
That is something of a sticking point for their mother. Connie said she did not worry about her sons’ safety, although J. J.’s Twitter page pictures him in uniform with a profusely bloody nose. What she is concerned about is their personal lives.
Throughout high school, the boys did not have serious girlfriends, she said. J. J., who has acquired some famous friends (he recently tweeted a picture of himself with Justin Timberlake), has said that he considers much of his life on hold until his window for athletic greatness has closed.
Do the younger Watts plan to stick to J. .J.’s football-first mentality?
“Unfortunately, yep,” Connie said.
“You’ve got to be willing to sacrifice, whatever it takes, this time in your life,” Derek said as T. J. looked on. “That’s what the great ones do. They put aside the fun and leisure things, you could say, for the short time you have the opportunity to play at the highest level.”
Derek missed six games this season after injuring his right foot in the Badgers’ opening game. He returned Nov. 15 against Nebraska, helping block for running back Melvin Gordon, a Heisman contender, as he rushed for 408 yards, then a Football Bowl Subdivision record.
After the game, Gordon gave credit where it was partly due. “I’m so comfortable with Watt back there,” he said.
Derek, who plans to graduate next fall, projects as the top fullback in the 2016 N.F.L. draft. But as the N.F.L. has shifted to a pass-first mind-set, fullback has become a luxury.
“He’s the kind of guy I could see giving football a shot for a year,” John said, “and if it doesn’t work out, ‘O.K., I’ll go get a job in the business world.’ He’d be perfectly fine with that.”
As for T. J., John said, “If you ask him, there’s no question” he is going to make it to the N.F.L.
Derek believes they possess the blueprint.
“He showed us how to do it,” Derek said of J. J. “I think that’s why we’re able to be successful at what we do, because we know the right way to do it.”
Then, he added, “It would be pretty remarkable to go up against him in a game.”
