From the farm to football’s biggest stage: Pickrell’s Jurgens represents rural Nebraska at Super Bowl LVII

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) - He wears a cowboy hat, loves chili and cinnamon rolls, and farming is in his family’s DNA.

Cam Jurgens is a Nebraskan through and through.

This week, his rural roots are set to be on display at Super Bowl 57.

“He would help out with the cattle and do chores,” said Ted Jurgens, Cameron’s dad. “He’d run the grain cart in the fall for the combine.”

It all started for Jurgens on a farm just south of Beatrice.

With cows, hay bales, and bins of soybeans. This rural part of Nebraska is where Jurgens learned the value of hard work.

“Working on the farm there’s stuff you have to do every day and he took that farm attitude and took it to the weight room and used it to work out hard every day,” said Travis Schuster, who coached Jurgens in both middle and high school. “He was always trying to do something to make himself better, so I think that farm stuff played a big part of that.”

Before Cam Jurgens the Philadelphia Eagle there was Cam Jurgens of Pickrell, Nebraska. The family farm he grew up on has been in the family since 1907.

“He’d help on the farm once in a while but he’d rather be playing ball,” dad said.

“He liked to have a ball in his hand or a bat, he was very athletic pretty much from the get-go,” mom said.

Those lessons learned at home led to Jurgens becoming a multi-sport star at Beatrice High School. His career as an Orangeman was a standout one, leading to a scholarship to play for the University of Nebraska.

“That was big, that was one of the best things in our life,” Ted said.

“I remember being at that game the first time he started. Putting those starters on the screen, I just remember tears rolling down my eyes,” Beth said. “It was just surreal.”

Despite the busy football schedule in Lincoln, Jurgens always found time to come home for his second passion.

“I think his favorite was the harvest, he’d like to come back for that,” Beth said.

“He liked working with the cattle, separating the calves from the mothers and he’s usually back to help with that,” Ted said. “Waiting for the combine to fill the truck and we’d always have a football in the truck.”

After earning All-Big Ten Honors in 2021, Jurgens declared for the 2022 draft where he was drafted in the second round, 51st overall to the Eagles.

“We were having a storm outside and the TV shut off and our stelitle went out so we were trying to get it hooked up and it was crazy but we got it back on maybe five or six picks just before he got picked,” Beth said.

In just his first year in the league, this farmer’s son from Pickerell, Nebraska is set to take the field on the world’s biggest state in Arizona competing in Super Bowl 57, in just five days.

“I know it’s always been his goal to play in a bowl game and now he’s playing in the biggest bowl game there is in the world and I think the Eagles will get it done,” Schuster said.

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