Andrew Hawkins' 2-year-old son, Austin, became a viral sensation when he was jokingly kicked out of the house for saying that his favorite player wasn't his own dad, but former teammates A.J. Green and Mohamed Sanu. The toddler was eventually allowed to come home after getting his priorities straight.
Browns WR Andrew Hawkins doesn’t want his son to play football
Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports
"He's a football head," said the Browns wide receiver of his now-famous tot. "And I always said that I didn't want to push my son into football, but it's natural. That's what his dad does and he loves it. He can name all 32 teams, he can name the quarterbacks for 15 teams. It's just so cool to be a part of it."
Austin, who also has some skills on the court, loves football so much that he gets frustrated when he sees a player getting tackled, a habit that Hawkins says comes from watching Sanu on Sundays react to being tackled himself.
“He’ll cuss at the TV,” laughed Hawkins. “He’ll listen to the players and every once in a while one will slip, like Mohamed Sanu. That’s one of his favorites. So Mohamed catches a pass one time - we were watching the game - and gets pushed out of bounds at the 15 and gets mad and he starts yelling because he didn’t score. My son mimics everything Mohamed does, so now every time someone gets tackled, that’s what he does. He yells.”
The tot also gets the most upset when forced to face the tragedy of having football taken away.
“I don’t watch football at home during the season, because I watch it from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.,” explained Hawkins. “I get home and I’m like, ‘I don’t want any football on the TVs, don’t ask me about football.’ Everyone knows they can’t talk to me about football. So when I get home and turn football off, he cries for like an hour because Daddy turned off football.”
Hawkins has dreams for his son. He wants him to be strong. He wants him to stand up for what he believes in. But he doesn’t want him to play football, or even analyze it. Not if he can help it.
“I’m so anti-sports,” he says of his goals for his son’s future. “Teach him math, let him be a math wiz. I don’t want him to be Adam Schefter. No disrespect to Adam, but I’d much rather him go to Harvard than go play at Georgia.”
College is a long way off for Austin, and Hawkins admits that for now the little man’s love of football is heartwarming.
“Watching him wanna be everything that I am,” said Hawkins, of the best thing about fatherhood. “I didn’t realize how awesome it was gonna be.”
