Our interview with Baby Gronk's dad

I can't tell you when I first became aware of Baby Gronk, but I can say I didn't go looking for him. Baby Gronk found me. Your experience was likely the same. Baby Gronk fed himself to the algorithm, and the algorithm spit him back out to millions of football-adjacent Internet consumers.

It's of course incorrect to imply Baby Gronk himself had any roll in all this. For the uninitiated, Baby Gronk is a character played by Madden San Miguel, a 10-year-old who has spent, now, nearly half his life turning his childhood into a brand. 

I've had a morbid fascination with Baby Gronk ever since. More specifically, with his dad.

Jake San Miguel is a 35-year-old former musician and high school football player from Frisco, Texas, who is doing his very best to become the Earl Woods of the 21st century. In one view, Jake San Miguel plotted his son's childhood before he was conceived -- yes, he's named after the video game -- and has used Madden as a spring board to build his own business doing for others' children what he's done to his own, with no thought to the social and emotional cost Madden may have to pay down the line.

Jake San Miguel doesn't view it that way, though. In his own view, he's a dad who's willing to do anything for his child, setting Madden up with the tools -- internal and financial -- to succeed in whatever path of life he chooses. 

One thing is certain, though. Jake San Miguel didn't build Baby Gronk (TM) on his own. Other brands have attached themselves to the Baby Gronk brand.

Maybe Jake San Miguel is setting his son up to fail, in the 99.9 percent chance he does not reach the NFL or the 99.99999 percent chance he is not the next Rob Gronkowski. But San Miguel doesn't view it that way. In his mind, he and Madden have already won. 

Last week, I ran into the San Miguels outside the Ford Center at the Star, the Dallas Cowboys' training facility. This is our conversation. 

FootballScoop: What brings you guys out here today?
Juan San Miguel: Daily training. Working on things that he lacks in his football abilities.

FS: How many days a year does Madden play or train for football?
JSM: A lot of people don't know he plays multiple sports. He plays baseball, football, lacrosse. I'm about to get him in jiu jitsu. A lot of people don't see because the brand and the content is strictly football. You mess up the algorithm if you put other sports in it. He plays everything. We focus more on training on eating and recovery than we focus on the games. I don't see youth football being the game changer, I see building habits and routine and little things for the overall goal. The main thing is to have him secure no matter what happens in case of an injury -- we can all dream about going to the NFL or going D1, you blow up a knee, you're done. That's why we focus on the brand just as much as we focus on the life work.

FS: How many social media followers does Madden have?
JSM: I think he has around 600,000 on all platforms -- YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. It's pretty big; you could say it's global. It's big, dude.

FS: How long have y'all been doing this?
JSM: Since kindergarten, so four years.

FS: Where did the idea come from?
JSM: I used to do music. I used to be in the music industry -- had a big fan base, a big following. I realized I was too old when I joined it. I knew I wanted to be a father and I couldn't live both lives. I already knew what to do with the training because I played ball, I was pretty good in high school. Really dude, it was more or less show him what I know, show him how to play sports, get him discipline so he can survive life.

FS: As parents we make decisions for our children. This plan that you're on, is Madden on board with it?
JSM: He's on board. It's like this, man: if a parent cuts grass for a living, he's going to show his son how to cut grass. I knew sports, that's pretty much all I knew, so that's why I got him into sports. I always tell him, If you don't want to play sports, that's okay. We can find something else that you're good at. But whatever we decide to do -- if you're working on cars or you're doing something else, we're going to do it all the way because I don't believe in going halfway on anything. You'll never succeed like that.

FS: Your 600,000 followers, is that bringing in an income?
JSM: Yes. We've done brand deals with Champs Sports, PSD underwear, we've worked with Michael Vick, we've worked with Wilson football, you name it we've done it. It's only getting bigger. Everything's monetized for him. Everything's going to him, man. It's savings. I could care less about what I could buy for myself or what I can wear. Everything's for my kids. When people say certain things on the Internet, 'Oh, the dad is making money off him.' No, it's for my kid's future, man. No matter what they say, he's going to be good and be taken care of, have properties and equity of companies and houses and all that. 

FS: You have your own job?
JSM: Yeah.

FS: What do you do?
JSM: I do social media marketing and training for young athletes. I got about 350 young athletes. A lot of people don't know how big we really are. I got kids with Oakley deals. I got a sixth grader named Mini Mahomes, he was in a commercial with Patrick Mahomes. I've blown up a lot of kids. It's not like I'm not helping out other people. I'm branching out now and going to NFL players and college players and I'm going to be managing some accounts, setting them up and training their managers. 

FS: Do you have other kids?
JSM: Yes, sir.

FS: How many? 
JSM: I have one daughter. She's six. 

FS: Are you going to set up a similar life path for her?
JSM: She plays sports already, she's like her brother. She sees everything he does and she wants to be part of it.

FS: Is she on social media?
JSM: No. We'll get her on social media. She's got a basketball highlight video. She's in kindergarten right now, so we'll probably blow her up in the next year.

FS: Are you concerned at all that you might be putting a target on Madden's back that maybe he didn't ask for?
JSM: I hear that all the time. If you're a good player, dude, you've got a target on your back. If you've got the ball in your hand, you're a target. Tom Brady, they're trying to hurt him, get him out of the game so they can win. If you're not a target, you're really just a role player, you're on the sideline. If you're playing sports, you want to be a superstar, make it to that next level, be that guy, you've got to handle adversity, handle pressure, you've got to handle ups and downs. I put him in different situations, a lot of people don't know. I don't put him on great teams all the time. I put him on teams that don't have athletes just so he can carry them. Sometimes he wins games for them, sometimes he loses, but guess what? He has to feel both sides of it.

FS: Certainly there's an aspect of feeling pressure within a game, but then there's what you're doing, broadcasting his every move to who knows how many millions of people.
JSM: And when I look at those people, their profiles, I see people that are not happy with their lives. It's like this, man. Are you happy with what religion you are? I can't pick your religion, I can't pick your wife. I should not care about that because we're not family. That's where I see it. If another man cares about another man's kid, you're wasting time, man. You should be worried about your own kids and your own family. Get them at the same state that we're on.

FS: Let's go back to your Tom Brady example. He was a grown adult paid millions of dollars to play in the NFL. Madden is a 10-year-old boy. Certainly you understand the difference there, right? 
JSM: Here's the beautiful thing, though. If Tom Brady had NIL when he was a young boy, or players that got hurt and had all that talent, they would have had some money in the bank. You know what I'm saying? They would have had equity of a company or some properties or something. All they have is a sad story. They just passed a law in North Carolina, they're paying high school players NIL. This is the new wave.

I could be doing worse things. You see all this social media, what they're doing, it's crazy. You've got 11-year-old kids committing suicide. The way I present him on the Internet, that doesn't mean that it's real life, you know what I'm saying? How we do real life is to handle this world, and how we do the Internet is for people to comment. We set them up on purpose. I have no thought of, 'Oh, my son's a god. My son's better than your son.' It's just on purpose for you guys to keep on watching because we're building the brand and getting bigger and bigger and bigger. 

When we go to colleges, the coaches, the recruiters, the college players, they come to the hotel and hang out. It's big, man. These people believe in it. No matter what people say, they don't see how powerful and how big this really is. We go to LSU, Texas Tech, they're doing photoshoots. We're taking pictures with the head coach and they know exactly who he is, he's not just a number or a kid with a T-shirt. 

FS: Every parent would love for their kid to be a 5-star recruit. The reality is, that happens for very few select kids. What if Madden tops out at JV? 
JSM: If he tops out at JV then guess what? He's destroying. It's a win-win. It's like, damn, what if God's not real? Then you just die. But what if God is real? Then you live forever. You win regardless. That's what's so beautiful about NIL. NIL is giving people opportunities. He's an influencer, he's a creator, he's a football player, he's a 10-year-old kid. He's a disciplined kid, a hard-working kid, a humble kid, everything is covered. That's really why this hasn't stopped growing.

FS: What's the reaction been like from Madden's peers? Have any of them said anything? What are the kids at school like?
JSM: He has a lot of friends. Everybody loves him. Mostly parents are the ones that put stuff in their kid's head if that happens. A lot of kids take pictures, autographs, they go crazy for him. You see little kids telling their parents 'That's Baby Gronk! That's Baby Gronk!' He's a star. He's a celebrity.