Raising Giants: My Extraordinary Journey with Two NFL Sons by Lee Schwartz; Highpoint Executive Publishing; © 2025; ISBN 9798990-848870l; 367 pages; $24.99.
SAN DIEGO — Super Bowl LIV played in 2020 was the first time that I took notice of Mitchell Schwartz. He guarded the right side of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. As I observed in an article then, “opposing tackles occasionally threw Mahomes for a loss from his left side, but never ever, through Schwartz. A sports car could more easily survive a head-on collision with an 18-wheeler. You might as well put a chihuahua in against a rhino.” The Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers 31-20 in a come-from-behind victory.
Now comes a memoir by Schwartz’s proud father, an ultimate football fan who estimates he had personally attended some 300 games counting high school, college, and professional contests that Mitchell and his older brother, Geoff have participated in.
The memoir is titled Raising Giants: My Extraordinary Journey with Two NFL Sons.
Geoff, the older son, played for Palisades Charter High School in the Los Angeles area; the University of Oregon; and in the NFL, was on the rosters of the Carolina Panthers, Minnesota Vikings, Kansas City Chiefs, New York Giants, and the Detroit Lions.
Mitchell, three years younger than Geoff, also played for Palisades, but then diverted from his big brother’s career path, playing college ball at UC Berkeley, and in the NFL for the Cleveland Browns and then the Kansas City Chiefs. In 2013, while with Cleveland, the two brothers opposed each other, the first time ever that Jewish siblings played against each other. Geoff then was with Kansas City, but had moved on by the time Mitch joined the Chiefs.
One chapter in Lee Schwartz’s memoir was titled “‘Do You Celebrate Thanksgiving?’”—Sports and Being Jewish” As the title suggests, some athletes have trouble differentiating religious holidays from American ones.
A question to the brothers at a forum at their local synagogue was “Being Jewish how can you touch pigskin?” Although the rabbi diverted the conversation, the truth of the matter is that footballs are made of leather rendered from cows. In the sport’s early days in the 19th century, footballs were made from pig bladders.
When Geoff, then a New York Giant, played on Erev Rosh Hashanah, a rabbi wrote to complain that he had abandoned Sandy Koufax’s storied decision not to pitch for the Dodgers on Yom Kippur. Geoff’s father said that was more than compensated for by his boys’ visits to Sunday schools, attendance at other High Holiday services, explaining Judaism to their teammates, participation in Holocaust remembrances, and being an inspiration to Jewish teenagers who were football fans.
When a fellow NFL player, not on his team, reposted quotes attributed to Adolf Hitler on his social media account, the Schwartz brothers responded, prompting DeSean Jackson to apologize and to spend time with a Holocaust survivor to learn more about the systematic murders of six million Jews.
A teammate on the New York Giants suggested to Geoff that if he didn’t convert to Christianity, he would be sent to Hell upon his death. Exasperated, Geoff picked up his lunch tray and moved to another table.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.