Baseball: How one Jimmies athlete met his childhood hero

JAMESTOWN, N.D. — Over a year ago, Jackson Bonneville created the Rogers Realm persona on TikTok to emulate his idol, Aaron Rodgers, with the goal of beating the four time NFL Most Valuable Player. After about six months of creating content, a message from the New York Jets in February, jump started the ultimate opportunity.

“The Jets texted me,” Bonneville says. “[I] showed my buddy Isaiah. I was like, ‘That can’t be the real Jets,’ and it wouldn’t really load up all the way, but I saw the preview. It said Jets. He was like, ‘Dude, it looks like the real Jets.’ We looked it up. It was the real jets. They were releasing their new jerseys. So, the original thing they reached out for is to help promote their new jerseys and make a couple of videos. At the end of their text, we’ll have to get you out to training camp in a few months and or a game this season.”

Flash forward to August, Bonneville packed up the RV to make a trip to Florham Park, New Jersey, for Jets training camp. After two days of watching Rogers up close in action, Bonneville will get the chance to meet his hero.

“The stress was just absolutely maxed,” he says. “I was so stressed out and nervous. I was like, ‘What am I going to say?’ After 3 seconds of talking to him, all the nerves, everything went completely away. It was way more than I expected. I expected, ‘Hey, how you doing? How you doing, man? Cool videos.’ No. That guy said he love the videos. Said he watched him, gave me two or three hugs, dap me up, signed my jersey, said, ‘hey, give me your address, I’ll send you a Packers jersey.’ Signed my jersey, wrote a nice message, talked about the cadence, talked about all the videos.”

While Bonneville was on top of the world meeting Rodgers, he was in the middle of a personal battle. Fighting a sickness that led to him losing 40 pounds and needing to remove his gallbladder. However, there was one day of relief for Bonneville. The day he met Rodgers.

“It’s obligated to be the best month of my life because I met Rodgers,” he says. “It is the best month of my life. If I didn’t meet Rogers that month, it would have been the absolute worst month of my life. I was sick before I met him. Sick on the trip. Sick the first day there, felt better the second day when I luckily met him. I thought I was over the sickness. I’m like, ‘Oh, it must have been a weird stomach bug.’ I meet Rodg[ers]. I feel great. Very next day, hospitalized. And then the next three weeks were an absolute rodeo. That was just a horrible three weeks, four weeks.”

While Bonneville reached his goal of meeting Aaron Rodgers, the fun is just beginning. He will continue making content in various means with a return to the gridiron where it all started, and even some opportunities off camera as well.

“We are going to be back on the field,” Bonneville says. “I will never leave the football field on the page. We will always be on the football field. Aaron Rodgers be like’s. Aaron Rodgers compilations. Everything is coming up. We’re going to be back on the field spinning that thing. We’re going to make some perfect foam footballs, foamers. You can throw them 85 yards through the air. That’s going to be one of the big things coming up next. I need to get some merch, some Realm merch going.”

As the Rogers Realm channel continues to grow, Bonneville has a new set of goals. While it may seem like he’s reaching for the stars, Bonneville believes that anything is possible after his journey to meeting the NFL superstar.

“Goal number one, get on an Aaron Rodgers Tuesday with Pat McAfee on the show,” he says. “Talk to them, boys. Goal number two, Film a TikTok with Rodgers. That has to be automatic. Number three, run Aaron Rodgers on the field in the Super Bowl this year or next year. Number four, introduce Aaron Rodgers when he gets inducted into the Hall of Fame in a few years. On the stage, Rodgers Realm introduces Aaron Rodgers, announce him getting inducted into the Hall of Fame, or, be there for when he gets his fifth MVP, which could also happen one of the next two years.>

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