Tiny Ohio town bursting with pride over local hero Joe Burrow

A banner stretched across Court Street in uptown Athens, Ohio, recognizes Joe Burrow's ascension from Athens High School star to Super Bowl quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals, Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022. Burrow, who grew up in the nearby village of The Plains, will lead the Bengals against the Los Angeles Rams in the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Athens High School is here, but the more picturesque and bustling college town of Athens is nine miles away. About 3,000 people live in The Plains, including Burrow’s parents, Jimmy and Robin. Close enough, say the people of Athens and the 20,000 or so students at Ohio University who have claimed a piece of him. Bars and restaurants have renamed menu items after him. There’s a Burrow banner stretched across Court Street and signs all over town. Burrow spent plenty of time in Athens, so it’s legit.At the center of it is a feeling that Burrow left but didn’t leave the people behind.

People here see Burrow projecting the same unassuming cool, polite forthrightness and unshakeable confidence he always did. That he hasn’t changed makes him even more appealing: They can still identify with him. Bursting with pride that sometimes makes him emotional, Smathers is eating up the media attention this week. Everyone wants to come talk to the coach who first installed Joey as the peewee team’s quarterback in the third grade.

That’s where Smathers will be watching Burrow and the Bengals face the Los Angeles Rams in the Super Bowl on Sunday night.

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Tiny Ohio town bursting with pride over local hero BurrowJoe Burrow has become something akin to a mythological figure in the weathered southeastern Ohio village where the Super Bowl quarterback spent much of his youth. In a region with more than its fair share of sorrow from poverty, the opioid epidemic and ongoing pandemic, Burrow has given people something good to claim as their own. “I think these people are proud that he’s from here, that he carries himself the way he does off the field, as much as they are proud of what he can accomplish on the football field,” said Matt Frazee, a service manager for an auto dealership who on Friday nights in the fall is the radio voice of the Athens High School Bulldogs.
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