Jacob De Jesus balances family, football dreams at UNLV

Jacob De Jesus woke up at 5 a.m. with more meetings on his schedule than most corporate employees take in a week.

After a mandatory breakfast with his teammates at the Fertitta Football Complex, he sat in a meeting for the wide receivers, a meeting for special teams, an offensive unit meeting and a meeting for UNLV football as a whole.

De Jesus knows it’s a lot, but that’s the grind that comes with being the Rebels’ go-to gadget guy and arguably one of the most versatile players in the NCAA.

Luckily, De Jesus only has class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So on a Wednesday, the senior looks forward to picking up his daughter from preschool once he’s done with practice, lunch, film study and homework.

As a parent to 4-year-old Amelia and a partner to his fiancee, Kirsten Lopez, De Jesus is under “a tremendous amount of responsibility being the head of the household,” said UNLV coach Barry Odom, whose 25th-ranked Rebels will host Syracuse on Friday at Allegiant Stadium.

“It’s amazing because he is such a tough competitor, and the things that I see every day on the field in the way he plays is the way that he attacks everyday life. He’s a tremendous part of our family.”

Balancing it all

De Jesus went big when he proposed to Lopez. The crowd was still in the stands inside Allegiant Stadium when he popped the question on the field following UNLV’s spring game in April 2023. It was his debut for the Rebels, a showing that featured 10 receptions for 136 yards and a touchdown for the 5-foot-7-inch junior college transfer.

His journey to UNLV is a story that could fill movie theaters, and Lopez saying yes would likely be the cinematic closing scene.

The opener could start with De Jesus learning that Lopez was pregnant during his senior year of high school. The couple had been dating for almost a year from their separate high schools, and there they sat with the revelation that they were starting a family — in a parked car outside of a Target right before Christmas break.

Lopez was in tears. De Jesus couldn’t process the news. His mother and aunts were young parents, but it wasn’t the path he imagined for himself.

“If you knew me in high school, you would never think that would happen,” De Jesus said. “Everybody knew I loved football.”

At UNLV, he’s able to balance it all. Amelia goes to day care on campus, and Lopez teaches at a school less than 10 minutes away. Lopez is also in school, taking classes online. But the family makes sure to keep Amelia busy and out of the house as much as they can, keeping her in gymnastics and cheer.

This isn’t the reality De Jesus imagined when he prepared for the role of fatherhood. He thought his football dreams were over.

“I was low key, like, depressed,” he said. “But as soon as (Amelia) came out, it changed my world for the better.”

Juco to Division I

In the Rebels’ 2024 season opener at Houston, De Jesus had touchdown catches of 13 and 24 yards in the first half. It was the kind of performance that reminds him he did the right thing to keep chasing his goal of attending a Division I college on a full scholarship.

But when De Jesus was at Modesto Junior College in California and living with his parents while working at UPS, he considered pivoting.

Even though he graduated from Manteca High School in California with program records, his size prevented him from garnering much recruiting attention.

At Modesto, he was vital in the team winning the Valley Conference title for two consecutive years and advancing to the NorCal playoffs, but he still didn’t have any options. Nelson Fishback, a staff member at Morehead State, eventually expressed interest in De Jesus, but the small Kentucky school wasn’t giving out full rides.

Fishback followed up with De Jesus on national signing day. He had taken a job coordinating special teams at UNLV, and the Rebels were open to giving De Jesus a shot.

When it was time to meet wide receivers coach Del Alexander and Odom in Las Vegas, De Jesus was nervous.

“I was just hoping that this was all true, that this wasn’t a mess-up or something like that,” De Jesus said. “And the way Odom talked to me, it was like, ‘No, we really want you here. We believe that you could be a really good player for us.’”

In 2023, his first season as a Rebel, De Jesus became the first UNLV player to earn all-conference honors at two positions (punt returner and kickoff returner) in the same season since NFL great Randall Cunningham in 1984 (quarterback and punter).

De Jesus still remembers how sincerely Odom spoke to his parents, Monica and Richard De Jesus. Lopez’s parents are from the Philippines, where basketball and soccer are king, and they didn’t understand why De Jesus was always training for football — but they get it now.

“I’m just so thankful for (Odom) and coach Del for just bringing me in here and taking a chance on me, when literally nobody literally would,” De Jesus said. “Every day I think about how bad I wanted this. I’m just so happy that this is my life now.”

Contact Callie Fin at clawsonfreeman@reviewjournal.com. Follow @CallieJLaw on X.