Jordan Mailata has a Unique Christmas Gift Coming to Town

The Eagles LT will see his parents for the first time in three years when they arrive in Philly on Christmas Day and will watch him play his first football game in person on Jan. 1

PHILADELPHIA – Jordan Mailata is not a fan of presents, not even on Christmas.

His gift this year, though he insists it’s not his gift, won’t have to be wrapped. It will only need to be picked up from Philadelphia International Airport. That’s where Maria and Tupa’i will be waiting.

Maria and Tupa’i are Mailata’s parents who haven’t seen their son in three years. They’ve never seen their son play football, other than on television in Australia.

That will change when they take their seats inside Lincoln Financial Field on New Year’s Day, settle in, and watch their boy line up at left tackle against the New Orleans Saints.

“You’re going to see me on my best behavior now that mom is here,” said Mailata earlier in the week. “I’m not going to swear anymore; I’m not lying. It’s going to be hard for me. 

"She hates when I swear. She watches everything, all the pressers all the interviews, she says, ‘that bloody mouth of yours, if you don’t stop swearing, I’m going to come there and smack you.’”

Only a mom can get away with smacking her boy, who has grown 6-8, 380.

The reason for such a long gap between seeing each other was mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Australia’s borders being closed – nobody in, nobody out.

In the interim, Mailata, now 25, grew accustomed to adapting to life without his parents and others in his family who were instrumental in guiding him through his life when he was younger.

“It was tough, but you get used to it,” he said. “You have to learn to adapt. That’s what happened, which is why I’m comfortable not seeing them. It’s even more tough saying this, but I’ve gotten used to not having my family around because they were a big part of my support system for most of my life.

"I had to learn all these years here by myself, how to build this system where I don’t have to lean on my family. My fiancée, I lean on her a lot, friends and teammates, my recovery team; that keeps me sane.”

His parents weren’t enamored with their son, 20 years old at the time, leaving Australia for the United States in 2017 to chase a dream in a sport he had never played in his life.

His parents didn’t immediately give him their blessing to go, and understandably so. He is the second youngest of five children. Not quite the baby, but close.

Mailata had the size in the family. The height came from his grandparents. His parents barely rise above 5 feet, 7 inches. His older siblings are closer to 6-1, but all of them are on the thin side.

Mailata was, too.

“Everyone’s normal, very normal,” he said, “built like Smitty (DeVonta Smith); Skinny. I was trying to bulk up because I was tall and skinny.”

So far so good, for Mailata. 

Taken in the seventh round of the 2018 draft, he has become a reliable starter on the best offensive line in the NFL, and, on the eve of last year's season opener in Atlanta, he signed a four-year contract extension that will pay him $64 million but can be worth up to $80M, with $40.85M guaranteed.

Prior to all that, Mailata was an Australian rugby star, looking like the Michael Jordan of his sport based on some of the videos that are around of him running people over with a rugby ball in his hands or destroying those trying to carry it on the opposing team.

Despite playing on a club team owned by movie star Russell Crowe, Mailata didn’t make much money. He was relegated to the team’s second unit, so he supplemented his income by waking up at 5 a.m. most mornings to work on a high-end demolition crew.

The demolition looks different now, with Mailata one of the more highly-regarded left tackles in football. Though he admits he hasn’t had his best season, Mailata was named an alternate for the NFC Pro Bowl team.

Maria and Tupa’i, who is originally from Western Samoa, are spending a few days in Tampa visiting some other family they hadn’t seen in a while before flying to Philadelphia.

Mailata didn’t want to bring them into Philadelphia prior to playing the Cowboys in Week 16 because he wanted to keep his focus.

“It’ll just give me time really to keep my mind focused on the (Dallas) game,” he said. “I didn’t want any distractions. Sometimes family can be a distraction if we’re going to be honest, so I didn’t want them to impact my routine and process during the week (but) the Christmas present is for them. I don’t like presents.”

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.