Early Life

The second of three sons, Aaron Charles Rodgers was born on December 2, 1983, in Chico, a city north of Sacramento, California. His older brother, Luke, is two years his senior, and his younger brother, Jordan, is five years his junior. Rodgers’s father, Ed Jr., a chiropractor, met Rodgers’s mother, Darla, a dancer who later became a homemaker, while attending California State University, Chico (better known as Chico State), where he was a standout offensive lineman for the school’s football team. Rodgers developed a passion for football through his father, who had tried out unsuccessfully for several teams in the Canadian Football League before playing semiprofessional football with the Twin City Cougars of the California Football League for three-plus seasons, in 1978 and then from 1979 to 1981.

Rodgers began watching NFL games at the age of two, and by five, he was updating statistics of NFL players on his football cards and formulating game plans. Rodgers athletic abilities were apparent early on, and when he was a boy, he was reportedly able to throw a football through a tire strung from a tree. He grew up rooting for the closest NFL team, the San Francisco 49ers (the Oakland Raiders called Los Angeles home at the time), and idolizing the 49ers’ legendary quarterback Joe Montana, who captured four Super Bowl titles in the 1980s. Rodgers admired Montana’s ability to thrive in high-pressure situations and dreamed of following in his footsteps one day.

Rodgers was raised mostly in the Chico area, but he spent part of his elementary and middle school years in Beaverton, Oregon, where his father attended chiropractic school for three years. He has credited his father, who had worked a variety of jobs to support the family before settling on a career as a chiropractor in his late thirties, for instilling in him and his brothers a strong work ethic and sense of responsibility. “I’d see him go into the garage and study for four hours,” he said of his father to Nickel. “I did not realize at the time, but he was doing it all for us.” Because of his father’s frequent job changes, Rodgers reportedly attended nine different schools growing up. He attended Vose Elementary and Whitford Middle Schools, in Beaverton, before moving back to Chico with his family in 1997. That year, he attended eighth grade at Champion Christian School, where, during the admittance interview, he boldly responded to a question about what he would do to make the school better by declaring that he would make their sports teams “really good,” as his father noted to Karen Crouse for the New York Times (30 Jan. 2011). By that time, Rodgers had already excelled in youth-league football, basketball, and baseball, as a quarterback, point guard, and pitcher, respectively.

Rodgers attended Pleasant Valley High School in Chico, where he played football, basketball, and baseball. As a sophomore, he made the junior varsity football squad. Despite his size (he was five feet six and weighed 120 pounds), Rodgers, who had large hands and feet, made an immediate impression on his coaches with his strong arm, sound mechanics, intellect, and football acumen. As the starting junior varsity quarterback for Pleasant Valley during his sophomore season, he called many of his own plays based on his ability to dissect and manipulate opposing teams’ defensive schemes. One of his high school football coaches, Ron Souza, told Brad Townsend for the Dallas Morning News (1 Feb. 2011), “If he were to be tested, Aaron probably has a photographic memory. … Nine out of 10 of us are concrete learners. We have to learn motor movements by doing them over and over. Aaron could visualize what we wanted. You never had to doodle it up for him.”

Rodgers made Pleasant Valley’s varsity football team as a junior and, in his junior and senior seasons, passed for a combined 4,419 yards. He earned all-section accolades in both years (2000 and 2001) and set school records for touchdowns (six) and all-purpose yards (440) in a single game and passing yards (2,303) in a single season as a senior. Rodgers also pitched for Pleasant Valley’s varsity baseball team as a senior; his fastball was reportedly clocked at 90 miles per hour. Along with his athletic achievements, he excelled academically, graduating with an A-minus grade point average and scoring a 1310 out of 1600 on his Scholastic Aptitude Test.

Despite a stellar high school football career, Rodgers did not receive any scholarship offers from NCAA Division I-A schools. Although he had helped Pleasant Valley’s varsity team reach the sectional semifinals during both his junior and senior seasons, recruiters did not seriously recruit players from the school. Also, though he had almost grown to his adult height of six feet two, Rodgers had yet to fill out his frame, weighing under 200 pounds; he was deemed too small to play Division I-A football. As a result, he remained close to home and enrolled at Butte College, a junior college in Oroville, California.

Rodgers spent his freshman year at Butte and played on the school’s football squad under head coach Craig Rigsbee, who lived in the same housing complex as his family. (Rigsbee literally walked over to Rodgers’s home to offer him a scholarship to the school.) In his one season at Butte, Rodgers shined, throwing for 2,408 yards and twenty-eight touchdowns, with only four interceptions, and posting a completion percentage of 61.9. He also rushed for 294 yards and seven touchdowns. He led Butte to a 10–1 record, a NorCal Conference championship, and a number-two national ranking among community colleges. He was named both the NorCal Conference and region MVP and earned third-team all-America honors from JC Grid-Wire. Playing with a motley crew of castoffs, Rodgers recalled to Jarrett Bell for USA Today (7 Sep. 2008), “I was exposed to a ton of guys with different backgrounds and cultures. … Guys from Florida, Texas, and Canada. Guys at 25 and 26 years old, still trying to make it. My center was 25. Our free safety, the team leader, was 22 and had been to jail. To be, at a young age, able to get guys to play with you and raise their game, that was a huge lesson. Probably the best year of football for me, as far as personal development. I learned a lot about myself as a leader.”

Because of his strong academic performance in high school, Rodgers was able to transfer to the University of California, Berkeley (Cal) after his freshman year. He was awarded a scholarship to play football by head coach Jeff Tedford, who had spotted him by accident while watching game film of his teammate, Butte tight end Garrett Cross. Rodgers, who had impressed Tedford with his arm strength and ability to read defenses, quickly learned Tedford’s pass-oriented playbook and became the Golden Bear’s starting quarterback in the fifth game of the 2003 season. He was soon named an offensive team captain and subsequently enjoyed one of the best seasons by a sophomore quarterback in the history of the Pacific-10 Conference (Pac-10, now the Pacific-12 Conference), passing for 2,903 yards and nineteen touchdowns, with only five interceptions, and amassing a completion percentage of 61.6 and 210 rushing yards. In his ten starts, he led Cal to a 7–3 record and helped Cal clinch its first bowl berth since 1996. In the 2003 Insight Bowl, Cal defeated Virginia Tech, 52–49. During the game, Rodgers threw for a collegiate-high 394 yards and compiled 424 yards of total offense, good for the third highest total in school history.

During his junior season at Cal, Rodgers again served as a team co captain and established himself as one of the best quarterbacks in American college football. He started in all twelve games and passed for 2,566 yards and twenty-four touchdowns, while posting a 66.1 percent completion percentage. He also had a passer rating of 154.4, which ranked second in the Pac-10 behind University of Southern California (USC) quarterback Matt Leinart.

Rodgers was selected as a quarterback for the All-Pac-10 First Team, finished ninth in the balloting for the Heisman Trophy as the top player in college football, and was named the Golden Bears’ Co-Offensive MVP. In addition, he received all-America honors from the Associated Press and other organizations and earned Pac-10 All-Academic Second Team honors. Running an explosive offense that averaged more than thirty-seven points per game, Rodgers helped lead Cal to a 10–1 regular-season record (their only loss was to the USC Trojans, the eventual national champions), a number-four national ranking (the school’s highest since 1952), and the 2004 Pac-10 championship. However, despite their record, the Golden Bears, lost out on a possible Bowl Championship Series berth to the University of Texas and were then upset by the Texas Tech Red Raiders, 45–31, in the 2004 Holiday Bowl.

Shortly after the disappointing bowl-game loss, Rodgers, who majored in American studies, decided to skip his senior season to make himself eligible for the NFL Draft. He finished his college career at Cal as the school’s all-time leader in passer rating (150.3) and interception percentage (1.95). Speaking with Jason Wilde for the Wisconsin State Journal (7 Sep. 2008), Tedford described Rodgers as a “student of the game. He loves it. He submerges himself in it. He doesn’t just memorize things. He understands concepts.”

The Road to Excellence

Analysts and scouts projected Rodgers as a top-ten pick in the 2005 NFL Draft, with some even considering him a potential number-one overall pick. However, the San Francisco 49ers, who had the top pick in that year’s draft, passed on Rodgers after deeming him not “athletic enough,” as Nickel noted. Instead, they selected quarterback Alex Smith of the University of Utah. Rodgers slipped to the twenty-fourth overall pick; the Packers believed he would eventually replace Favre. Despite being disappointed with his draft placement, Rodgers welcomed the opportunity to serve as an understudy to one of the greatest and most durable quarterbacks in NFL history. “I think the first progression every quarterback makes is you come in being the guy, and if you’re not the starter you realize that there’s someone better in front of you, and that’s a big step to take because when you’re the guy you’re confident,” he explained to Tom Silverstein for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (7 Sep. 2008). “Second, figure out the things he does that are better than you and study it and work on those things and improve.” During the summer of 2005, Rodgers signed a five-year deal with the Packers worth $7.7 million.

During the 2005–07 seasons, Rodgers played only occasionally while serving as Favre’s backup. During that time, he headed the Packers’ scout-team offense in practice every day, where he was responsible for running upcoming opponents’ offensive plays to prepare the defense. The Packers veteran wide receiver Donald Driver told Tim Layden for Sports Illustrated (7 Nov. 2011) that Rodgers “took every scout-team possession like it was the last possession of his life.” While Favre made little effort to serve as a mentor to him during that time, avowing that it was not part of his job description, Rodgers made a point to shadow Favre as much as possible in practices and on game days in efforts to learn all the nuances of quarterbacking. “I’d watch him like a hawk,” he noted to Silverstein, adding, “Anytime he opened his mouth in meetings to talk to a receiver I listened. … I wrote it down.”

In 2005, after performing poorly during the preseason, Rodgers made his NFL debut as quarterback for the Packers in a week-five matchup against the New Orleans Saints. Briefly replacing Favre in the fourth quarter of the game, which the Packers won 52–3, Rodgers completed his only pass attempt, to fullback Vonta Leach for no gain. That year, he played in two more games, in weeks fifteen and seventeen, against the Baltimore Ravens and Seattle Seahawks.

In the week-fifteen contest with the Ravens, in which the Packers lost handily, 48–3, Rodgers filled in for Favre near the end of the third quarter and completed eight of fifteen passes for sixty-five yards and one interception. In the game against the Seahawks, he entered for the game’s final play in a 23–17 Packers victory. Despite winning the final game, the Packers ended the season with a disastrous 4–12 record, after entering the season having won three consecutive National Football Conference (NFC) North division titles. Packers head coach Mike Sherman, now the offensive coordinator for the Miami Dolphins, was consequently fired and replaced with McCarthy, who had spent the previous season as the offensive coordinator for the 49ers.

Rodgers developed further under McCarthy, a former quarterbacks coach, who required him to attend his mandatory quarterback school as part of the Packers’ offseason program. During the school, which was held several days a week in six-hour sessions, Rodgers focused on improving his hand-eye coordination, his mechanics, and his physical conditioning. Despite his initial reluctance to make changes, Rodgers has said that the school helped him become a better all-around quarterback.

In 2006, Rodgers relieved Favre on two occasions (both times due to injury), appearing in games against the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots, in weeks four and eleven. In those games, he ran a total of thirty-six offensive plays, completing six of fifteen passes for forty-six yards, with no touchdowns or interceptions. After sustaining a broken left foot in the game against the Patriots, which the Packers lost 35–0, Rodgers did not play for the remainder of the 2006 season. The Packers improved their record from the previous year, going 8–8, but missed the playoffs for a second consecutive season.

Rodgers filled in for Favre on two more occasions during the 2007 season, in which he served as the Packers’ primary backup quarterback for the third consecutive season. His duties included providing in-depth weekly reports to Favre and the team’s coaches on upcoming opponents, which helped him gain superior knowledge of opposing teams’ players and tendencies. During the season, Rodgers completed twenty of twenty-eight passes for 218 yards, throwing one touchdown. He had a passer rating of 106.0 and rushed seven times for twenty-nine yards. His first career touchdown pass came on an eleven-yard strike to wide receiver Greg Jennings in a week-thirteen game against the Dallas Cowboys. In that game, the Packers’ rally, led by Rodgers, who completed eighteen of twenty-six passes for 201 yards, fell short, as the team lost to the Cowboys, 37–27.

Rodgers missed the final four weeks of the season because of a hamstring injury but returned to serve as Favre’s backup during the postseason. The Packers finished the season with a conference-best 13–3 record and won their first NFC North division title since 2004. With home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, the Packers defeated the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC divisional playoff round, 42–20, the Packers played in the NFC Championship Game, losing to the eventual Super Bowl champions New York Giants, 23–20, in overtime. Rodgers played in the final series of the NFL divisional game against the Seahawks but did not play against the Giants in the NFC Championship Game.

The Emerging Champion

After Favre’s long-delayed retirement before the 2008 season, Rodgers was named the Packers’ starting quarterback. Although Favre abruptly unretired in training camp that year, the Packers ultimately settled on Rodgers as their quarterback; Favre was traded to the Jets. The decision to trade Favre, who had not only broken every major NFL passing record as a Packer but also appeared in a record 275 consecutive games (including the playoffs), greatly angered Packers fans, many of whom took out their frustration by heckling Rodgers in training-camp practices. Undaunted, Rodgers, who was also forced to deal with mass-media attention as a result of the Favre drama, handled the difficult situation—described by Silverstein as “arguably one of the hardest assignments in recent NFL history”—with poise and professionalism. McCarthy said of Rodgers to Wilde, “I think he grew up … I think he did a very good job of handling a challenge, handling a situation that there really wasn’t a script for. It was unprecedented.”

In his first season as a starter, Rodgers showed flashes of his potential to become an elite NFL quarterback. In his debut as a starter, in a game in which the Packers beat the Minnesota Vikings 24–19 on September 8, 2008, he completed eighteen of twenty-two passes, compiling 178 yards. Rodgers was the first quarterback other than Favre to start a Packers’ game since 1992. The following week, he led the Packers to another victory, over the Detroit Lions, passing for more than three hundred yards for the first time in his career and throwing three touchdown passes; he was named the FedEx Air Player of the Week.

Rodgers suffered a partially separated shoulder early in the season but played through the injury, earning the respect of his teammates. He started in all sixteen regular-season games, passing for 4,038 yards and twenty-eight touchdowns with only thirteen interceptions. He became the fourth Packers quarterback to record four thousand or more passing yards in one season (after Favre, Don Majkowski, and Lynn Dickey) and only the second NFL quarterback to surpass the four thousand-yard plateau in his first season as a starter (the first was Kurt Warner, who accomplished the feat as a member of the St. Louis Rams in 1999). Rodgers’s numbers notwithstanding, the Packers finished with a losing 6–10 record and missed the playoffs. Seven of the losses were by seven points or fewer and included two overtime defeats. After signing a six-year, $65 million contract extension with the Packers in October 2008, Rodgers entered the 2009 off-season dedicated to improving his performance in come-from-behind situations.

During the 2009 season, Rodgers became one of the top quarterbacks in the league. He started every game for the second consecutive year and threw for a then career high 4,434 yards, thirty touchdowns, and only seven interceptions, while posting a remarkable 103.2 passer rating. He also rushed for 316 yards and five touchdowns. He was the first quarterback in NFL history to compile four-thousand-plus yards in each of his first two seasons as a starter and the first quarterback in league history with at least thirty touchdown passes, five rushing touchdowns, and seven or fewer interceptions in the same season. Early that season, Rodgers quickly put to rest any doubts about his ability to perform in high-pressure situations, when he led the Packers to a 21–15 opening-day, come-from-behind victory over the Chicago Bears. In the game he threw a fifty-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Jennings. Rodgers was the NFC Offensive Player of the Month in October, passing for 988 yards and posting a completion percentage of 74.5 and passer rating of more than 110 for the month. He earned his first career Pro Bowl selection during the season. The Packers finished second in the NFC North division, at 11–5, and advanced to the postseason. In a 51–46 overtime loss to the Arizona Cardinals, Rodgers threw for a franchise playoff best 423 yards and tied a franchise playoff mark with four touchdown passes.

Rodgers confirmed his status as an elite quarterback in 2010. Despite missing one regular-season game because of a concussion, he finished the year with 3,922 passing yards, twenty-eight touchdown passes, and a 101.2 passer rating, while adding a career-high 356 rushing yards and four rushing touchdowns. He was selected as a first alternate to the NFC Pro Bowl squad and was named the FedEx Air NFL Player of the Year. Despite losing fifteen players to injuries during the course of the season, the Packers finished second in the NFC North and earned the NFC’s sixth playoff seed.

After winning road playoff games against the Eagles, the Atlanta Falcons, and the Bears, the Packers faced the Steelers in Super Bowl XLV, which was held at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on February 6, 2011. The Packers defeated the Steelers, 31–25, and Rodgers was Super Bowl MVP, completing twenty-four of thirty-nine passes for 304 yards and three touchdowns. Leading up to the Super Bowl, he posted one of the most dominating postseason performances in NFL history while setting several postseason passing records. In the NFC divisional round against the Falcons, Rodgers completed thirty-one of thirty-six passes for 366 yards and three touchdowns. His passer rating was 136.8, the highest in league postseason history among quarterbacks with at least thirty-five pass attempts. He also tied a league record in that game for throwing at least three touchdown passes in three consecutive playoff games.

Continuing the Story

Rodgers carried his dominant play from the 2010–11 playoffs into the 2011 regular season, posting the best numbers of his career. He finished the year with a career-high 4,643 passing yards, forty-five touchdown passes, and only six interceptions, and he amassed a league-best 122.4 passer rating, which is the highest single-season quarterback rating in NFL history. He became the first quarterback in league history to throw forty-five or more touchdown passes with six or fewer interceptions in a single season.

Rodgers was named to his second career Pro Bowl and first as a starter and earned his first AP All-Pro First Team selection. He also garnered NFC Offensive Player of the Month honors for September, October, and November and FedEx Air Player of the Week honors on six occasions. Bolstered by Rodgers’s record-breaking numbers, the Packers won the first thirteen games of the season, finishing with a league-best 15–1 record. They won their first NFC North title since 2007 and earned home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, but they lost to the eventual champion New York Giants, 37–20, in the NFC divisional playoff round.

Despite the Packers’ disappointing finish, Rodgers was recognized for his efforts during the regular season and won the 2011 AP NFL MVP award, receiving forty-eight first-place votes (second-place finisher, Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints, received two). He was the first Packers player to win the award since Favre, who won three consecutive from 1995 to 1997, and the fifth Packer overall (after Bart Starr, Jim Taylor, Paul Hornung, and Favre). He was also named the 2011 AP Male Athlete of the Year.

During the off-season, Rodgers, who is single, lives in Del Mar, an affluent beach town located twenty miles north of San Diego, California. In 2011, he signed an endorsement deal to be a spokesman for State Farm Insurance and has since appeared in a series of popular State Farm commercials for the company’s “Discount Double Check” program, in which he pokes fun at his signature “championship belt” touchdown celebration. He has been involved in numerous charitable activities and worked extensively with the Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer Fund. He is an avid fan of indie rock and country music and enjoys playing golf and the guitar in his spare time. He cofounded his own independent record label, Suspended Sunrise Recordings, which signed a Chico, California-based indie rock band called The Make.

Additional Sources