The journey of Christian Watson through the eyes of his mom

By Christa Watson

Christa Watson is Green Bay Packers receiver Christian Watson’s mother. She’s also an executive in the hospitality and event industry in Tampa having raised three kids, including Christian, with an NFL player as a father. But that didn’t lead to a glamorous life. It was a grind to chase that dream for Christa and Christian’s father, Tim. This is just part of Christa’s story in her own words.

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Christian was never not going to play in the NFL.

Maybe Kansas City Chiefs legend Derrick Thomas knew that when he introduced me to his teammate Tim Watson, Christian’s father. Tim played for the Chiefs when I met him and actually started his career with the Green Bay Packers. And while I knew from experience life for most players in the NFL was hardly the glamorous existence it’s made out to be, I always made sure Christian and his brother Tre’s dreams of playing the game their father loved could be a reality, even if it ultimately broke their hearts the same way it did their father’s. I have to be their rock, their home base.

When I met Tim, I was living in Kansas City going to school as a 19-year-old. Yes, a future Hall of Fame player introduced us—Derrick remembered me from Carmine’s in Tampa where I was a bartender and server. But we had sixth-round draft pick finances. We had to work for everything we had. When he left the Chiefs for the Giants, we rented month-to-month and didn’t know where we’d be from year-to-year. We had no house, no support structure.

Tim left for Barcelona to play in the World League right after I found out I was pregnant with Christian’s older brother Tre. Where do I go? What do I do? I’m a pregnant wife whose husband is going to Barcelona. With no cell phones and long-distance calling, we had to save our money just to talk for 30 minutes on Sunday and Wednesday.

We had no home base.

I was young. I didn’t know how scary what I was doing was, but I was just … doing it.

We decided to build a home in Phoenix. But while it was being built, I had nowhere to stay and Tim was gone. His teammate with the Giants, Phillipi Sparks and his wife, opened their home to us while they were in New Jersey and let me stay there (You may know his daughter, Jordin Sparks). Meanwhile, I would only get to talk to Tim when he could get a chance to call me from his coach’s office. We didn’t have the money for him to take trips back and forth.

Our daughter Lexi followed Tre, and Tim returned to Phoenix to play in the Arena League with the Rattlers. His NFL dream was over. When we found out Christian was going to be born, I faced a difficult realization in my life: I was 22 with two kids, one on the way, I owned two tanning salons, and had a husband who didn’t know where his career was going.

We finally had a home base but the foundation of our family wasn’t always steady.

I watched the game break up with Tim before he was ready, a psychological blow that followed him his whole life. I think it still does. That’s the real shit that affects families, that affected us.

All of this rushed through my head as I waited for Christian to enter the world.