Navy offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper keeps an eye on home
ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Outside the comfortable two-story house at the end of a quiet cul de sac, a simple metal sign proclaims: “BEAT ARMY.” It is the only evidence of the most important goal, ever and always, for anyone associated with Navy football — and until now, that has included the Jasper family.
“This game,” Donna Jasper says, “as long as you win, all the little ups and downs we had all year long — it will take them all away and it will make the season better.”
And Ivin Jasper, Donna’s husband and Navy’s longtime offensive coordinator, acknowledges: “We’re not having the year we want to have. But one week can change everything.”
One phone call, too.
Jasper got one Wednesday afternoon, just before practice. It wasn’t the one he has been waiting on for so many months now. But he dropped everything and left, uncertain when he might return.
To beat Army means everything — until it means nothing. For the Jaspers, what matters is a teenage son with big dreams and a bad heart.
Jarren Jasper is 14. He needs a heart transplant, which is why Ivin and Donna keep their phones very close at all times. When a call comes, they check for area code 202 and prefix 476 — hoping it’s from Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and praying it’s a heart. “Is this it?” Ivin wonders. “But it’ll be confirming his appointment.”
Wednesday when his phone rang, it was something else. Jarren had gone in for tests. Doctors didn’t like what they saw. Ivin didn’t like what he heard.
Thursday afternoon, the Jaspers returned home. Ivin went to practice. More tests are scheduled for Friday morning. No one is certain whether he will coach Saturday against the Black Knights.
Football? Beating Army? “Really, none of that matters,” Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo says. “Your kids, your family — lives are what matters.”
Jarren and his family are in a fight for his.
‘When our life changed’
Giant photos of the Jaspers’ three children playing sports adorn the walls of their home, as well as Ivin’s office at the Naval Academy. Dallas, their daughter, is a junior volleyball player at Saint Leo University in Florida. Jaylen is a freshman volleyball player at Stanford. Jarren, who was a fixture at Navy football practices since before he could crawl, is a very good athlete, too.
And although his best sport might be basketball, he has played football since kindergarten — first at running back, then later receiver and quarterback — and was looking forward to playing on the freshman team at Broadneck High School last fall.
Then during a routine physical exam last summer, a doctor detected an irregular heartbeat. A visit to a cardiologist followed, then to an electrophysiologist. And then Aug. 4, Jarren underwent a catheter ablation, in which doctors attempt to destroy tiny portions of the heart muscle to arrest the irregular heartbeat.
No one was especially concerned. Ivin Jasper had a similar procedure because of similar symptoms years earlier, when he was a teenager. That morning, from his office at the Naval Academy, Ivin texted Jarren:
“Don’t be afraid son. You’ll be fine.” Jarren texted back: “I’m not” — meaning he wasn’t afraid. But soon, he wasn’t fine.
The procedure took longer than expected. And then Jarren’s heart swelled. And then it stopped.
A nurse emerged from the operating room to provide a vague but troubling update: “We’re having a little difficulty.” Donna called Ivin: “Something’s wrong. You need to get here.” Ivin arrived less than an hour later, in time to hear another update: “We’re doing all we can for him.”
“You hear that in the movies sometimes,” he says.
“I don’t ever want to hear those words, ‘We’re doing all we can for him.’ What do you mean? He came in, there’s nothing wrong with him. ‘We’re doing all we can for him.’ They’re talking like he’s not gonna make it. I cannot believe this.
“That was the worst day. It was when our life changed.”
‘Next big coaching job’
On Oct. 5, after two months in the hospital, Jarren went home with a left ventricular assist device (LVAD), which was implanted to do the heart’s work. It’s battery-powered or plugged into the wall. Even so, life has settled into a routine.
Tutors come a couple of times a week. Friends occasionally visit, too. But Jarren spends his days mostly hanging out in an oversized recliner in the family’s living room, watching TV or playing video games.
He struggles to walk because of nerve damage related to the placement, dur- ing those first days in the hospital, of an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) device, which took over Jarren’s heart function until the LVAD replaced it. But he says he rarely dwells on his situation.
“I just kind of try to think about other things,” Jarren says. “I don’t want to be sitting here just thinking about that and keep waiting and waiting.”
When Ivin left the office that day in August, he didn’t really return for several weeks. When Jarren’s status stabilized, he began spending more time with the team.
Niumatalolo, who along with his wife, Barbara, is very close to the Jaspers, suggested Ivin take the entire season off, telling him: “This is the last thing you need to be worrying about.”
But Ivin asked Donna and Jarren, who had a different idea.
“I’ll be fine,” Jarren told him. “Go to work, coach the guys and help us win games.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” Donna said. “The only thing is, when you’re done, you come here and we’re together every night.”
Ivin has mostly worked regular hours, up and out of the house early and back late. He says the season has been a release for him. But it has also produced a different, more difficult stress than he’s ever encountered and created a deeper fatigue than he has ever experienced. And when the season ends, Ivin plans with Niumatalolo’s blessing to take some time completely away from football.
His goal will be to help Jarren back to health. And he dreams of a day when Jarren has that new heart and father and son take an RV across the country together, taking detours to sight-see, finishing in California where they’ll visit Jaylen.
“That’s my next big coaching job,” Ivin says, “is to get him back.”
His current coaching job has amazed Niumatalolo, who says Ivin has been “super strong.”
“I don’t know how he’s done it, but I’ve been so impressed with him as he continues to care for his son and still do his job,” Niumatalolo says. “But the one’s that super impressive, too, is Donna. There’s no rest for her.”
For the Jaspers, there’s also the jumble of emotion that goes along with hoping for a new heart while knowing how it becomes available — that somewhere, another family would go through unspeakable tragedy. Instead, they call it waiting for a miracle.
Until then, in a week when nothing feels more important than beating Army, what matters is a teenager’s smile and those hugs. Remember how Donna Jasper told people they were living in hell?
“We’re not, really,” she says.
“I’m just thankful that my son is here.”
“I don’t know how he’s done it, but I’ve been so impressed with him as he continues to care for his son and still do his job.” Ken Niumatalolo Navy coach, on offensive coordinator Irvin Jasper, whose son is waiting for a heart transplant