He turned, sweating in his Miami Dolphins shirt, after three hours of walking and driving to houses two days before Thanksgiving a few years back. Jenkins is one today, gone at 47, the Dolphins vic…
Jason Jenkins is walking through a rusty gate to a house in Little Havana. As usual, he doesn’t look like a corporate vice president trying to save our community, one person at a time. He looks like a delivery man carrying a box with a hurried step.
“Hello, here’s your turkey,’ he said, knocking on the door.
He turned, sweating in his Miami Dolphins shirt, after three hours of walking and driving to houses two days before Thanksgiving a few years back.
“They asked for another turkey,’ he said to me, as he read the to-do list in his hand. “We’ve got a lot more to deliver today.”
You never know when you’re a headline. Jenkins is one today, gone at 47, the Dolphins vice president of communication and community affairs leaving not just his wife, Elizabeth and three children behind, but also an organization in tears. A full community, too.
Coach Mike McDaniel stood after a preseason game against Philadelphia and said, voice quaking and eyes leaking, “Football pales in comparison to what all the people who were really affected. The list is long.”
The list included an old defensive end who met Jenkins when he arrived in early 2009, Jason Taylor, who was in tears on the game’s television broadcast Saturday, saying, “We lost a good one.
