TIGER FAMILY.
The principle that holds the Fort Hays State Football team together. The idea that not only are they teammates, but friends, brothers, family.
On Nov. 12, 2021, the Tigers welcomed a new face to the family- an 8 lb. 7 oz. baby boy named Lincoln. Since that day, Layke and Jordan Heimerman have felt nothing but love and support.
YOUNG LOVE
Eight years ago, the Heimerman’s began their story after meeting at a church retreat. Layke, a sophomore at Halstead and Jordan, a senior at Bishop Carroll, spent the first two years of their relationship in the Wichita area.
While Jordan pursued her soccer career at Hutchinson Community College, Layke finished high school with a scholarship to play football at FHSU.
“It was perfect, right when I had accepted a scholarship to come play football here, she had made plans to come pursue nursing school at Fort Hays, so we ended up moving to Hays the exact same year,” Layke said.
Though the distance between them was in the past, both took on pursuits that kept them busy day in and day out. But always, they made time for each other using their relationship as support through the toughest times.
While Layke earned accolades on the field and in the classroom, he had his sights set on a goal he made as a love struck sophomoremarrying his best friend.
LIFE CHANGES
In August of 2019, Layke got down on one knee and asked the love of his life to spend forever with him. Tearfully and excitedly, she said yes. A few months later, Jordan graduated from FHSU with a nursing degree.
By June 2020, Jordan Smith became Jordan Heimerman, BSN. With plans to start a family following Layke’s final season of football, the pair enjoyed their first few months of marriage together before the shock of their lives.
“I had a weird feeling, I just felt something was off,” Jordan said.
Working the night shift at the hospital, Jordan clocked out and made a pit stop at WalMart before heading home. Taking a test that would change her life more than any midterm, Jordan saw two little lines that sent her into a state of awe.
Patiently- rather restlessly, Jordan waited for Layke to get home from morning weights to share the news. To let Layke know he wouldn’t be just a husband, student, athlete- but now a father.
“It was an incredible experience coming home, just a ton of excitement but it definitely hit me with a ton of shock, I wasn’t expecting it at all, but there couldn’t have been better news,” Layke said of that morning.
But there was no fear, no distress, only gratitude for the couple. Though they had planned to start a family following Layke’s last season, they missed their anticipated timeline by one week.
A senior weekend the couple will never forget, baby Lincoln was born on Nov. 12, 2021.
“I think we didn’t even know what to feel because we didn’t know what to expect, I was excited just to not be pregnant anymore,” Jordan shared. “It was so new, that first day he was born it was mostly just exhaustion and it didn’t hit us until we took him home that oh, we’re parents.”
While his brothers went to battle against the Gorillas at Lewis Field Stadium, Layke became a father and welcomed his son to the world.
“I was so excited just because it was a whole new chapter in our lives,” Layke said. “We were planning on him, you know, sign the contract with my job, move to Wichita, just an entirely, completely different step and it all started with him.”
With plans to say goodbye to Hays, to football, Layke was prepared to give up his last year of eligibility to give his full attention to fatherhood.
“Obviously that’s not quite what happened,” Layke joked.
SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO
After tearing his ACL in the 2021 match up against Nebraska-Kearney, Layke’s final season was cut significantly short. While he was willing to accept this as his final outing for the sake of his family, Jordan along with coaches encouraged him not to make a decision prematurely.
“When Layke got hurt last season, we weren’t prepared for that, it was hard, it was tough, so I said if you want to play another season I will support you and we can do it,” Jordan said. “He was convinced that we couldn’t, he wanted to be a good dad, he said we have to move on with our lives but I kept telling him, knowing us I think we can do it, I think we can figure it out.”
Over the next few months, Layke went through recovery and used that time to decide what would be best for him, for his family. Talking with coaches, Layke gained perspective on his situation, realizing that maybe this wasn’t an impossible dream. Maybe he could be both a great father and a committed athlete.
Both fathers themselves, Layke sat down to talk with Head Coach Chris Brown and Defensive Coordinator Cooper Harris.
“I just thought I wouldn’t be the father that I felt I should be if I do this,” Layke shared.
His coaches, now giving him a play-by-play on fatherhood, alleviated some of the stress Layke was feeling. Stress coming from the unknown, they advised Layke to get through the hard parts, get through the first few weeks, months.
“They told me it’s really no different than having a full time job, they told me they’d help me out, that things get easier and you’ll find that it’s definitely doable,” Layke added.
Jordan left him with a final thought, one that would make the difference.
“What are you going to have more memories of, working an average job and making a salary? Yeah, that’s great but wouldn’t you rather remember seeing your wife and your one year old on the sidelines while you play football,” she said. “That’s a memory that can’t be replaced, it can’t be replicated in any other way and this is the only opportunity to do that.”
As he recovered from a torn ACL, Layke made the decision to stay in Hays. To take on his final year and finish the way he had hoped he would in 2021. At the beginning of the summer, Layke showed up for morning workouts ready to work.
GETTING IN THE GROOVE
An 8 month old alongside graduate school and the grueling schedule that comes alongside college football is no easy task. Not to mention a wife devoted to her work as a nurse while working towards a Masters degree.
How do a pair of 20-somethings still figuring out marriage, still figuring out life, raise a child with an already daunting schedule?
“The community of Hays,” Layke said. “It’s just an incredible place in general, but all of our friends are still here and everyone is so willing to watch him and- I swear I drop him off at a new friends house every morning that I go to weights.”
With the help of their family and friends, Layke and Jordan are both able to pursue what they love while being the best parents to Lincoln.
Not only is Layke surviving his new life as a father and athlete, but he is thriving. Layke was named one of eight captains for the football team throughout the summer.
Every so often, Lincoln joins him in the weight room, with help from athletic staff, and gets early glimpses of his dad doing what he loves.
“How he’s doing it right now I think he’s being a great husband, I think he’s being a great dad,” Head strength and conditioning coach Doug Boucher shared.
“Lincoln has not met a stranger yet and he’s carrying that balance, it’s probably taxing him a little bit more but that’s what growing and developing in life is.”
Football has been a part of the Heimerman’s story from the beginning, busy schedules the norm for both Jordan and Layke. Thanks to the sport and the opportunities it has brought him, Jordan shares that Layke has grown into an amazing father, husband and leader.
“Having Lincoln, it’s been awesome to watch him be a dad because he still makes him and our family the number one priority,” Jordan said. “He has always been disciplined, hard working, he knows how to work with others and it just translates into the person that he is, but he also knows how to have fun and that’s what he is able to bring out of me.”
While Layke focuses on his final season, Jordan is working three days a week at Via Christi while pursuing a Masters Degree. Though she is unsure what she wants to do in the future, she loves her field and the flexibility it offers her as a mother.
Currently within a shortterm contract, Jordan and Lincoln will be able to take the fall off from working and be Layke’s biggest cheerleader for his last year.
“She’s incredible at what she does and that just speaks to how good she is at caring for others,” Layke shared. “Watching her through high school, college, everythingshe continually gives more and more of herself every single day, she seriously is the most caring person I’ve ever met.”
BRIGHT-EYED AND HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
At the center of it all now, is Lincoln who is adapting to mom and dad’s busy lifestyles quite nicely.
“He was just thrown into our busy lifestyles and he just goes with the flow, he can hang out with anyone, he can take a nap at the Q, he is just fun and easy going,” Jordan said.
Not only mom and dad, aunts and uncles, grandma and grandpa- all of the loving family a child could be blessed with, Lincoln has a full roster of brothers in black and gold.
“He’s a happy-go-lucky kid, It’s amazing that all the guys know Linc, that’s good because that means that they have relationships outside of the system that my eyes don’t see,” Boucher said.
With the cheesy, vocal, outgoing personality Lincoln has already shown the world, he has two ambitious role models to look up to as he grows.
“The one thing about Layke that is probably one of his best assets not just as a person but what he shows as a leader is he’s himselfhe’s unique, he doesn’t try to be anybody else, he’s Layke, he’s the best version of Layke that you could ask for,” Boucher said of Layke.
Throughout their lives together, two things have remained constant- faith in their love for each other and faith in God’s plan. Blessed with more support than two young parents could ask for, both Jordan and Layke pour out their love for Hays, Kansas.
“It was a faith guided decision, and a lot of things fell into place, if we would have gone anywhere else I don’t think we would have the support that we have.”
