Typically at this time of year, Joe Judge would leave his family’s home in North Attleboro, Mass., at 5:30 a.m. to report to the Patriots’ facility. Most days, he wouldn’t return home until 7 or 8 p.m.
But this offseason has been drastically different for the Judge family. First, Judge was hired as the Giants’ head coach in January. Then, instead of spending the spring alone in New Jersey while his family remained in Massachusetts to finish the school year, Judge returned home after the team’s facility closed in mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Rather than spending days surrounded by Giants staffers at the team’s headquarters, Judge works in the basement of his family’s home while his four children – Sean, 14; Michael, 11; Emma, 9; and Ella, 6 – do their schoolwork upstairs.
“He’s going down to the basement probably at about the same time, 5:30 or 6,” Judge’s wife, Amber, told The Athletic. “He’ll come up and eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with us, which is very nice to have him. He’s still working until 10 or 11 at night a lot of days. The difference is we can go see him down there.”
The only ground rule regarding basement visits is the children have to be quiet when they enter in case Joe is in a virtual meeting with a draft prospect or staff members. The family’s golden retriever, Abby, has unfettered access to the basement, usually occupying a spot next to Joe on the couch.
“They pretty much leave him alone and let him work,” Amber said. “Sometimes he’ll ask the boys, ‘Do you guys want to come down and watch this tape with me or watch this player,’ and they’ll both run down there because they love doing that.”
Amber said Sean, “definitely got that coaching bug.” Joe joked at his introductory news conference that Sean was “telling me about the roster when I came home and things we can do.”
“A lot of times he’ll just ask, ‘Do you think dad needs coffee?’ and he’ll take him coffee down there and sit and watch for 45 minutes to an hour depending on what Joe’s doing,” Amber said. “He just loves sitting down there and watching tape with him. That’s something that if Joe was in the office, he wouldn’t have as much access to.”
The access has added a voice to the Giants’ draft evaluations.
“I’m sure Sean gives him all types of tips and advice. I’m not sure how much of it is received, but I’m sure they talk through all that,” Amber said. “Sean was saying yesterday he’s probably more invested in this draft than any draft because he knows so much about these players, and I totally agree with him.”
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While Joe is still figuring out the logistics for next week’s virtual draft, he expects it to be a family affair to some extent.
“I have told my kids that there’s times I’m going to need them to get out of the basement and there’s other times they can be present,” Joe said. “Based on how we set up our draft board so that I can have a visual in my basement, I’ve already talked to them about possibly taking tags off the wall and organizing different things. I’m not looking to make this a vacation for anybody. We have a lot of serious work to get done. But it is still our house, and like everyone else in America is finding out, everyone is working with their family always present, and that’s pretty true for us.”
The Judges have a home office, but that wasn’t the ideal setting for Joe’s long workdays.
“It’s kind of in the middle of all the action on the main floor so we just thought the basement would be a little bit quieter and secluded and he can close the door,” Amber said. “We’ve got a TV there that he’s using as a monitor in addition to the computer. It’s just a makeshift office for now, but he’s comfortable. He likes to sit on the couch down there.”
The basement was a hangout spot when the kids had friends over, but visits are on hold due to social distancing. The only concession to accommodate Joe’s new office location is a change in venue for the boys’ football games.
“They go down there and, I’m sure, tackle each other where I can’t see them and get mad at them,” Amber said. “So that’s come to a halt, but they’ve just moved that outside.”
Judge with Amber and (l-r) Michael, Ella, Sean and Emma on the day of his introductory press conference in January. (Matthew Swensen, Giants.com)Joe is close to completing his PhD in education and had a brief stint as a kindergarten Phys. Ed. teacher after graduating from Mississippi State. But he leaves the home-schooling to Amber, who was a high school English teacher before transitioning to stay-at-home mom when Joe got hired by the Patriots in 2012.
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“My oldest is pretty much on his own. His school is all through Google Classroom anyway,” Amber said. “There are times they’re all pretty self-sufficient and there are times they all need my help. It just depends on the day.”
Amber’s schedule is typically crammed with football, basketball, lacrosse, soccer, gymnastics and dance practices and games.
“We’re definitely in that state of parenting where it’s like you’re an Uber driver all the time,” she said.
But things are quieter now. The boys were riding their bikes around the neighborhood while Emma took a gymnastics class on Zoom and Ella used an iPad during a 25-minute stretch on Wednesday afternoon.
“It’s good because it slows down a bunch,” Amber said. “My kids are very heavily active in sports and activities and we don’t have any of that right now, so we’re able to spend a lot more concentrated family time together.”
And that time has included Joe more often since he’s only a few steps away.
“The thing with Joe in his profession and it’s like this with most coaches, with the families we always say, ‘It’s quality over quantity,’” Amber said. “You don’t get as much time with the family as you would if you had a 9-to-5 job, but you just make sure you make the most of it. When he is done with work or he has a break, he’s always been very good about spending quality time with the kids.”
Joe likes to throw the football around with the boys and take family walks.
“My dogs have never been more exercised in their lives,” Amber joked.
Nights are spent doing “normal family stuff” – TV shows, movies and board games. Uno, Exploding Kittens and Monopoly are heavily in the rotation.
“We’re all very competitive,” said Amber, who played soccer at Mississippi State. “Right now, we’ve gotten very competitive with Monopoly. It’s nice because my kids are old enough to actually play it the right way now.”
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It’s been a far different spring than the Judges expected after a whirlwind start to the year. Joe went from a Patriots playoff loss to coach of the Giants in a span of four days. The plan was for Joe to live in an apartment near the Giants’ facility and travel home to Massachusetts on weekends during the offseason, with the family moving to New Jersey at the end of June.
Like with many other things in the world, the spread of COVID-19 forced those plans to change. The silver lining for the Judges has been more time with dad.
“They love that he is here and accessible,” Amber said. “They don’t have to just FaceTime him to see him. They can see him anytime.”
There have been no complaints about the situation in the Judge house. As Joe said on Wednesday, “I think if the worst thing we’re dealing with right now is working out of our basement, we’ve got it pretty good.”
Joe went on to salute the first responders and medical professionals battling the disease. That’s a perspective the family gained first-hand.
“My uncle is an ER doctor in Seattle. I get a much different perspective of what he’s going through out there in the middle of this pandemic,” Amber said. “We’re not on the frontlines. We’re all together and we’re safe and we’re healthy and we’re able to stay home. For us, this is easy. And for most people out there, it’s not.”
(Top photo: The Judge Family)
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