Former Titans coach Mike Vrabel took in son's friend, allowed him to live with family for three years.
The long wait in line was over for former Titans coach Mike Vrabel and his two sons with the same last name, Tyler and Carter, and his son with a different last name, Jackson Lacey.
Their combined weight, it turned out, was over the limit allowed for a four-man tube they longed to slosh down on together at Universal Studios in Orlando during the last day of a family vacation.
"We all weighed too much to sit together," Lacey told The Tennessean. "We are four massive dudes, and we got kicked off a lot of rides we were trying to take.
"Mike's an adrenaline junkie, just like the rest of us. He wanted to go on all the rides even more than the kids did."
While the foursome was split up on that ride on that slide, they were far from apart in everyday life.
Lacey, who befriended Carter when the two were students at Father Ryan High School, isn't just a family friend. Mike Vrabel scoffed at that notion.
The Nashville firefighter is a "son" to Vrabel, who returns to Nashville this weekend when his New England Patriotsface the Titans and interim coach Mike McCoy at noon on Oct. 19 (CBS, WTVF Channel 5) at Nissan Stadium.
He was a kid whose weekend stay at Jen and Mike Vrabel's house turned into a couple of weeks and ended up lasting three-plus years. He's a kid who was looking for a place to go, but didn't know where. He was a kid who had the coach of the city's NFL team at the time ready to help.
"I don't think any of us consider Jackson, Carter's friend," Mike Vrabel told The Tennessean. "Jackson, he's one of us. He's our son. We treat him as our son, and we try to support him.
"He kinda went home one day, had an incident, and came back. One day I said, 'Hey, why don't you come back 'home'. Get a hot shower and get some lunch.' And he never really left."
The Vrabels' home was now also Jackson Lacey's home. Always will be, no matter the miles that may separate them.
"He calls me his 'House rat,' " Jackson said.
'Love you. Bye.'
The "House rat" showed up at the Titans' practice facility one night, a math final looming the next day.
The father Spidey senses in Mike Vrabel tingled. So he offered to help Lacey study.
Lacey wasn't having it.
"He's like, 'I already know it,' " Vrabel said. "I'm like, 'You don't know it.' "
Except he did. What Lacey failed to tell Vrabel was that he already had a study partner.
The next day, Lacey had the last laugh.
"I said, 'How did you do on that test?' " Vrabel said. "He goes, 'Ah, somebody helped me, one of the teacher's aides. I got an 80 and I passed.'
"I was like, 'Why the hell didn't you tell me this when we were arguing last night?' He goes, 'I don't know, I just liked arguing.' "
And so the stories go.
And so Jackson Lacey is one of the Vrabel boys.
"Every time I talk to him on the phone, when we hang up it's, 'Love you. Bye.' " Lacey said. "Every time I see him it's, 'Love you. Bye.' "
'I don't really even care about football or the Titans'
Jackson didn't care about the Titans when he and Carter met through the "Purple Pride" program at Father Ryan. The former was a senior, the latter a junior. The year was 2019.
The two played the latest version of NHL on Carter's XBox every night.
Then came the day that Mike Vrabel offered to let Lacey stay at his family's home for as long as he wanted to or needed to.
They were on their way to brunch after attending mass one Sunday morning when Vrabel turned down the volume on the music playing in the car and turned around toward Lacey, who was in the back seat.
He began by telling the then 18-year-old how his job was public, and that Lacey might see or hear some things he couldn't talk about.
"I told him straight up, 'Honestly, I don't really even care about football or the Titans,' " Lacey said. "He looked at me and was like, 'Well, damn, all right.' "
Lacey's affection for the Titans eventually grew, but his loyalty remains with Mike Vrabel, who was fired by the team after the 2023 season.
"I'm a fan of him," Lacey said. "Wherever he's at is who I'll support."
And vice versa.
When Lacey wrestled with his mental health, when the tension between he and his parents became too much to bear, the Vrabels were there. Lacey said he worked different jobs since his early teenage years. He missed out on being a kid.
Vrabel encouraged Lacey to seek therapy.
"He really made me kind of open my eyes to it," Lacey said. "I kind of felt like an outsider for a little bit there. I was living with this family, and it was great, but I felt like I was intruding. He did a really good job of making me feel like I belonged."
Meet Ric Flair
Jackson Lacey has returned the favor.
After Jen and Mike Vrabel moved to New England when he took the Patriots job, Carter Vrabel, then a baseball player at Tennessee Tech, was left with no place to go "home" to.
Enter Lacey.
"They have a guest room there," Carter said. "It's basically like my room, if I ever come back into town."
Lacey also sometimes plays chauffeur for the Vrabels when they return to town.
For instance, when Mike and Jen came back to attend Carter's senior day in Cookeville, Lacey was at the airport to pick them up.
And they all pick right back up where they left off.
Stories start flowing. Like the one about the time wrestling legend Ric Flair's team reached out to Vrabel to invite him to a roast ahead of Flair's "last dance" match in Nashville.
The Vrabels and Lacey had front-row seats.
"We were like, 'What the hell is going on?' " Lacey said. "We go in the back after and he's still in character. Like, this guy is not real.
"He's got his like, 23-year-old girlfriend with him. She has no idea what's going on. ... He's like 80 years old, still going. I don't think he's really listening to what I'm saying. He just wants to say, 'Woooo.' "
Like the time during COVID when Lacey met Tom Brady.
Sort of.
Brady and Vrabel, former teammates with the Patriots, were on a FaceTime call when Brady noticed Lacey.
"He said, 'Who's in the background there?' " Lacey said. "He's like, 'that's our house rat, Jackson.' "
Joking with the kid he took in in 2019 just like a father would.
"He despised people calling me a charity case," Lacey said. "He'll joke about it and be like, 'you're my charity case.' But if somebody else says it, whoa. Bad thing to say to him."
Mike Vrabel on return: 'Very interesting'
Hugs and "I love yous" are on Lacey's to-do list this weekend when Vrabel returns to Nashville.
Vrabel, who was 54-45 with three playoff appearances and won the 2021 AP NFL Coach of the Year award during his six seasons as Titans coach, is looking forward to it. But in the end, this is a business trip.
"There is going to be, probably, a lot to be said about this," Vrabel said on during his press conference on Oct. 13. "I think it would be filed under the category of, 'Is it interesting or important?' I would probably say this would be very interesting, but in the end not very important to our preparation or what we need to continue to try to do to improve as a team.
"But, having spent six years there or seven years there, I think it will be nice to see some people that I haven't seen in a few years that helped us win, players and staff."
It will be nice to see Jackson Lacey, too.
Paul Skrbina is a sports enterprise reporter covering the Predators, Titans, Nashville SC, local colleges and local sports for The Tennessean. Reach him at [email protected] and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @paulskrbina.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Mike Vrabel's return to face Titans means more to Nashville firefighter
Category: Football
