HITS KEEP COMING
Two offensive linemen are out Sunday, adding to long list of banged-up Jets
Mike McGlinchey remembers his second grade teacher’s advice vividly. “Mrs. Judge always told me, ‘Do your work in school first, and take care of football second, and you can be like Joey,” the San Francisco 49ers right tackle told the Daily News on Thursday.
McGlinchey’s teacher was Denise Judge. Her son was Joe Judge, now the Giants’ head coach, who was playing Division I football at Mississippi State in the fall of 2002.
On Sunday, Judge, 38, and McGlinchey, 25, will be foes at MetLife Stadium when the Giants (0-2) host the Niners (1-1). But during the 2002-03 school year at St. Joseph/St. Robert Catholic School in Warrington, Pa., Judge was a college football player sending gear home to outfit his mom’s physically precocious second-grade student.
“I’d go back and maybe swing through over Christmas break, and you’d go into the classroom and there was this one kid who was like 5-foot-8,” Judge, who was class of ’96 at St. Joseph/St. Robert, told the Daily News Thursday. “And you’re like, ‘Geez, this kid’s huge. My mom would always say he couldn’t find shoes that fit him. So I’d try to find him shoes, gloves, clothes, and send them back.”
McGlinche y confirmed Judge’s mom “brought in a bunch of Mississippi State gear that Joe had sent home for me.”
“I think I wore a size 12 shoe or something by that time,” the Niners’ tackle said. “So Mrs. Judge always took care of me.”
Judge, a product of Lansdale Catholic, was more than an unofficial youth football sponsor to McGlinche y, though.
“He was my first introduction to someone at a high level of football,” McGlinchey said. “Joe’s career at Mississippi State, I remember that being the first thing, because it was right before my cousin Matt went to Boston College.” McGlinchey’s cousin Matt is Matt Ryan, the Atlanta Falcons’ quarterback who matriculated from Penn Charter to Boston College as a redshirt freshman in 2003. Before Ryan rose to college and NFL stardom, though, Judge was McGlinchey’s first connection to Division I ball.
And since the Judges and the McGlincheys are also in the same St. Robert’s parish in Warringto n, the connection runs even deeper. The families have remained close enough that when Judge got the Giants’ job in January, McGlinchey was texting and calling to congratulate the Judges.
“Mrs. Judge was my second grade teacher and is one of my favorite teachers of all time, and I still stay in touch with the family to this day,” McGlinchey said. “My mom [Janet] and Mrs. Judge have been close since I was her student. We see them at church all the time and at different stuff in the area. My mom runs into Mrs. Judge at Acme or something every once in a while.
“It’s cool how our football worlds have intertwined,” McGlinchey added.
Judge said the McGlincheys had been a “great” and “really positive” family, and he remembered the Niners’ right tackle as “a big, smiling kid” back in second grade.
Their paths would cross again, however, when McGlinchey grew into a D-I prospect and Judge was an assistant to Nick Saban at Alabama.
“Mrs. Judge had called Joe,” McGlinchey recalled, “and she said, ‘ Hey, I think Michael’s recruiting is taking off. You might wanna take a look.’”
When Judge was a special teams assistant for Saban in 2011, the staff was going through a list of top recruits when Crimson Tide offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland (now the Philadelphia Eagles’ Oline coach) mentioned Penn Charter’s McGlinchey.
Judge needed no introduction.
“I was like, Mike, yeah,” Judge said.
“It was cool because we had this pre-existing relationship,” McGlinchey said. “The NCAA rule I think was you couldn’t talk to a player until after eighth grade, but I had known Joe since second grade.”
“I didn’t get recruited by many SEC schools,” McGlinchey added. “But I got a phone call from Joe. It was cool that he had joined up on Saban’s staff and done such a good job there and won the trust there. But going into my junior year I had a feeling why he was calling.”
Judge laughed on Thursday recalling how he tried unsuccessfully to get McGlinchey and his dad, Mike Sr., to come down to Alabama for a camp.
“He and his dad, they weren’t about it,” Judge said. “It was before Alabama was ‘the thing,’ right when Alabama had started winning. So they said it seemed a little too far away. But then they were gonna drive to Wisconsin and I was like, ‘You know it’s the same distance in a different direction, right?”
When Judge’s Alabama team played at Penn State in Sept. 2011, McGlinchey came out to State College with mutual friends, the Devlin family, and Judge said he “tried to schmooze him” there, too.
But when Notre Dame became a serious suitor, Judge knew what that meant.
“Once Notre Dame was in on it, I told Jeff, ‘He’s going to Notre Dame,’” Judge said.
McGlinchey indeed drove out to the Midwest with his dad. The plan was to visit Notre Dame, Michigan, Michigan State and Wisconsin. They never got to the other three schools.
McGlinchey actually told his dad to “pull the damn car over” on the Indiana Toll Road after leaving Notre Dame so he could call his mom (with five more kids back home) and his uncle and then Notre Dame offensive line coach Harry Hiestand with his decision. So Judge was right. “Mrs. Judge knew who I was a fan of and what my last name was and where we grew
up,” McGlinchey laughed. “ND was the end-all, be-all for all of us. I grew up in the Catholic school system. ND was on TV every Saturday. And Joe had that, as well. He knew what Notre Dame meant to us and our family and people back home.”
No hard feelings, either. After all, McGlinchey never made the ride all the way out to Wisconsin after telling Judge Alabama was too far.
“Fortunately I went to ND first so I didn’t have to drive the extra miles,” he laughed.
THRILLED FOR JUDGE
McGlinchey starred at Notre Dame and became the 49ers’ ninth overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. Since, he has started 30 regular season games and three playoff games, including last year’s run to Super Bowl LIV.
But he spent most of Thursday’s interview conveying his enthusiasm for Judge’s opportunity with the Giants. He said Judge deserves it and puts the Giants “in good hands.”
“It’s always cool to see your family friends have success,” McGlinchey said. “And Joe was with Nick Saban and Alabama and he won there. Then he goes to New England and wins Super Bowl after Super Bowl with Bill Belichick. I know Joe was very trusted in their organization.
“And now who would have thought 15 years ago that the Judge family and I would be so close and that our careers would have taken off,” the Niners’ tackle said. “I’m so excited for Coach Judge and the Giants. They’re in good hands, a great family man person and football coach.
“Hopefully we get the better of them Sunday,” McGlinchey laughed. “But I’m excited to see him.”