Football: Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce (62) in action, looks on vs Washington Commanders at FedEx Field. Landover, MD 10/29/2023 CREDIT: Simon Bruty (Photo by Simon Bruty/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images) (Set Number: X164448 TK1)
In a clip from this week’s episode of New Heights, uploaded to the podcast’s Instagram account, Jason Kelce is treating fans to another throwback photo from the football star’s childhood hockey days. In fact, we got to feast our eyes on two snapshots predating his NFL and Swiftie-adjacent popularity, including one “startling image” of the center as a teenager—specifically, at 14 years old. It appeared to be a team headshot or yearbook photo, in which the much younger Jason stared at the camera with a straight face in a collared shirt and tie.
“You mean the greatest center of all time?” Travis hyped him up, showing another photo of Jason’s 14-year-old head photoshopped over a photo of him in his Eagles uniform. It all started when a fan sent in an old photo of himself “getting trucked” by the Eagles Center during a high school hockey game. “Me getting trucked by Jason Kelce,” he captioned the snapshot, which appeared to show Jason in a yellow, black, and white uniform throwing another player in Eagles green to the ice.
Travis was completely tickled by the moment, pausing for laughter before working out that the photo must have been taken during Jason’s freshman year. Jason confirmed that he was only 27 for that year before switching to number 13 on the team—a serendipitous connection to his brother’s girlfriend, as Taylor Swift’s lucky number is, famously, 13.
Jason explained that that photo, along with the one of him as a teen, was still available on a sports website dedicated to Cleveland Heights area hockey. While he doesn’t remember the specific game, sports stats are forever, and he was able to figure out that they were “killed” that evening, losing 7-1.
