by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
While emotions of the football kind are expected to run rampant on the field at Alltel Stadium, emotions of another kind sometimes flare up in another section of the stadium - the main offices.
In 2001, Mike Perkins, the Jacksonville Jaguars’ video director, ran into Jennifer Johnson during a meeting.
Three years later Mike and Jennifer became the first couple to meet and get married while working for the team.
The Jags have more than 120 employees but not until last June did two get married. Yes, there are married couples (co-owners Wayne and Delores Weaver, for instance) but they didn’t marry on the job. The nearest is a former worker in the sales department who married one of the team’s cheerleaders, but the Roar aren’t really employees.
Jennifer said that while she had run into Mike in the hallways from time to time, she clearly remembers her first introduction to him in her former boss’s office.
“We had not formerly met until he was sitting in (ex-director of special events) Ronnie White’s office and Mike was being such a smart aleck,” she said. “I came in to ask Ronnie a question and Mike just kept interrupting. He was being such a Grade A jackass, which led to an introduction.”
Jennifer’s opinions of Mike have obviously changed since then, but the two did not become interested in each other until early the following year.
“We had flown to New Orleans to pick up our Super Bowl tickets and a bunch of us were on the same flight. That’s when things sort of sparked,” said Jennifer, who was promoted to her present position of Director, Creative Services when her boss left.
Though Jennifer said Mike made the first move toward a relationship, Mike said “she was chasing the dream.”
“Well, he likes to tell people that,” she said with a laugh.
The two did not get to go to the Super Bowl together that year but they did start secretly dating the following summer. Mike said he tried to keep the relationship under the radar because he was a little paranoid about dating someone in the office.
“Mike is a very private person,” Jennifer said, “and he didn’t want people speculating and getting in our business and drawing conclusions that were none of their business.”
She said Mike was able to get over the secrecy issue when “people started congratulating him on the great catch.”
Both say they have a great working relationship because they work in different areas of the stadium.
“He is on what people call ‘The other side of the hallway’,” Jennifer said. “There is a hallway that divides coaching and the team from the front office. I can’t really think of many occasions where there is much interaction between us other than company-wide staff meetings.”
But Mike said interactions between the coaching side and the main office side have become more frequent since he and Jennifer got married.
“The interaction has been really good because the coaches kind of opened up a little bit I think because of us,” he said. “Ever since Jack (Del Rio) has been here, everything around here has kind of opened up. Not just us, but everybody as a whole. Now you will see people coming across the hall and you will see coaches over here talking to people, whereas before it was a football side and a front office side and that was it.”
Since getting married, both Mike and Jennifer say they have had to learn how to better manage their time together with regards to the hectic football season. Mike’s job requires him to work every day during football season, from the beginning of training camp to the last Jaguars game. This is nothing new for Mike, but Jennifer said she is learning to deal with their unique situation.
Mike is from a football family. His father is Ray Perkins, the former head coach at the University of Alabama and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, among others. Besides never getting to celebrate a traditional holiday, including Thanksgiving, Mike said his father’s football career forced him to live in 16 different places by the time he was 19.
Jennifer’s family situation is a bit different from Mike’s, even though her family has a small sports angle — she’s related to Peter Magowan, the owner of the San Francisco Giants baseball team. Her father is Dave Johnson, a prominent surgeon at St. Vincent’s. Her mother is Karen Johnson, owner of the Bonne Nuit shop in Avondale.
“Even before we got married, I think she had trouble getting adjusted to the football lifestyle of never being home,” Mike said. “But I think I have done a better job this year as far as making time for us.”
Jennifer agreed, saying that he is very committed to making time to be together. She said they try to eat lunch together several days a week because Mike usually doesn’t get home before midnight most nights.
“When you get home at 11 or 11:30 at night, you don’t have a whole lot of quality time at home,” she said. “He has made much more of an effort now that we’re married.”
And, they need extra time because they’ve just bought a home which needs considerable work. They’re fitting that in, too.
Both said that they have learned important lessons from being married co-workers. Jennifer said she has learned how unique wives in military or sports relationships have to be.
“I have learned that working in, maybe not the same office, but the same industry gives you a better appreciation for what (your husband) is experiencing,” she said. “I think women who are married to anybody in a profession where they have only two days off in six months, like the military or a surgeon that is on call all of the time or a football coach or a video guy, are interesting creatures because they are very understanding and independent and they move a lot.”
“You have to be a special person to be able to do that,” Mike said.
Jennifer said she doesn’t know if she “could be that special person without having a really true appreciation for what he does.”
Mike said marriage in the Jaguars workplace has taught him a different aspect of the industry, even though he has been around football all of his life.
“I have learned the business aspect of it from being around her,” he said. “I have a greater appreciation for what people do over there on her side.”