This Rutgers Fan Should Give the Scarlet Knights an Inspiring Pep Talk
If Rutgers coach Chris Ash is looking for a diehard fan to deliver an inspiring pep talk to his team, he should give J.P. DeMauro a call.
A longtime Rutgers season-ticket holder and booster who was part of the school’s Fan Advisory Board, DeMauro turned his life around in a way that would make Scarlet Knights strength-and-conditioning coach Kenny Parker proud.
As the third-leading rusher in the history of the Rutgers football program put it: “J.P. lost half his body weight.’’
“It’s definitely one of the hardest things to do in life, at his age, to lose the kind of weight that he did,’’ said J.J. Jennings, the record-setting former Rutgers running back, who joined DeMauro at a tailgate before the Iowa game on Saturday. “When I met him a few years ago it was at a game in Nebraska and he was well over 300 pounds. He decided to do something about it, he stuck with it, and look at him now.’’
In late 2017, DeMauro said he tipped the scale at 390 pounds.
“This morning,’’ he said Saturday a few hours before the Scarlet Knights’ 30-0 loss at Iowa, “I weigh 205.’’
He said his life turned around on his 40th birthday.
“My wife wished me a happy birthday and I told her, ‘I don’t want to die when I’m 60,’ ‘’ he recalled.
His father died 13 years ago at age 60. It was around that time, DeMauro said, that he “gained over 100 pounds in probably a course of five years after he passed away.’’
“I think of it two-fold: him dying was part of the reason why mentally and physically I gained all that weight,’’ DeMauro said. “But he’s the person who also got me out of that, too.’’
DeMauro, 41, ran a 5K in Belmar during this summer. Next spring, the Lincoln Park resident plans to run a half-marathon.
“I started doing a lot of weight-loss stuff but I realized I needed a little bit of help so in January 2018 I had gastric sleeve surgery,’’ he said. “It was one of the best decisions I made in my life. I’m the first person to say I had a little bit of help. But it’s the change in mentality. Sometimes you’ll see people who have (the surgery) fail because they think it’s a quick fix. I didn’t look at it at all that way; I looked at it like this was going to get me started and now I have to finish it.’’
Jennings, who became friends with DeMauro through the football program’s letterwinners association, recently put DeMauro on a plan to work on his upper body.
“We all admire him,’’ Jennings said. “What he’s doing, to stay dedicated to it and focused on changing his life for the better, you gotta give him all the credit in the world.’’
A Rutgers season ticket holder since 2003, DeMauro says he hopes to eventually run a marathon.
“That may be a long way down the road,’’ he said, “but I have to keep moving the goal-posts back to keep moving forward.’’
It’s a statement that any football coach would be proud of.
“Moving forward in life, especially nowadays, is a very important thing,’’ he said. “When the days are dark and there’s crap going on, you have to keep looking to the next goal, achieve that goal, and then say, ‘Okay, great. Now what else can I do?’ ‘’
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