For month after bleary-eyed month this offseason, Jesse Minter did everything he could to succeed as a first-year head coach. So as the final moments ticked away in the Ravens' 41-23 Week 1 win over the Colts -- Minter's first victory -- he could finally take a breath and celebrate. A hug from Lamar Jackson, the quarterback he won over with an in-home visit weeks after being hired.
An embrace from his dad, longtime coach Rick Minter, now on Baltimore's staff. He knew he and his team had so far to go, but he could savor this. "It's surreal a little bit, honestly.
I don't know if it has actually hit me yet," Minter said. It's been quite the journey. Getting to where Jesse Minter is today, like any of the 32 NFL head coaches, required a lot of hard work, a lot of luck and a few good breaks.
And for Minter, it required, quite literally, a bad break. After starting college at Cincinnati, where his father, Rick, was the coach, Jesse transferred to Division III Mount St. Joseph, where he could play football.
"When he came in with his dad, it was so obvious that he was dying to play the game," former Mount St. Joseph coach Rob Huber told CBS Sports. It was a no-brainer." But Minter broke his leg in his first season.
He had emergency surgery for Crohn's disease -- 18 inches of his colon removed, per The Athletic -- and missed the entire next season. He suffered another leg fracture in his third year. He could have slunk away.
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