When the Packers' Jordy Nelson Faced a Season-Ending Injury, He Did Something Unbelievable For His Son's School

As the NFL season builds up to the Super Bowl, all eyes are on the players on the field, but little is actually known about the players once the lights go down and the fans exit the stadiums. For the dads among the players, there's no bigger dose of reality than crossing through your front door and demands of fatherhood hitting you smack in the face.

"When I'm home, I'm home. I'm a husband and a father," Green Bay Packers wide receiver Jordy Nelson tells us. "When I'm at work, I'm at work. I try as much as possible and it's worked out well so far." It's that side of life that Dove Men+Care is tapping into with their latest Highlight Reel campaign. Nelson, father to a 5-year-old son, Royal, and infant son, Brooks, spent the 2015 season on the sidelines after a torn ACL took him off the field in the preseason, but he didn't sit idly by during his recovery — he took an even more active role in his kids' lives.

The NFL all star actually fulfilled his dream after a teacher in his son's school needed to take a semester off for cancer treatment. Nelson volunteered to fill in and teach her third grade math class. "I had a lot of great teachers, and I wanted to be a teacher when I graduated high school but just kind of got sidetracked on that," he shared. "My wife was a teacher, my sister is a teacher . . . so it was fun to do. It was good to give back a little bit and to be with the kids. I enjoyed every moment and hopefully the kids did as well. Hopefully they learned something!"

Luckily Nelson didn't have to get too bogged down with Common Core math, though he did have to brush up on his square roots. "It was just like I needed a refresher real quick before I walked in and tried to teach someone this . . . I know how to multiply 5x5 but then . . . try to explain it to a kid? It was interesting!"

As for separating what happens on the field from his family life at home, Nelson tries to treat it like any other job. "I keep my work at work as much as possible. When I go into the stadium, I obviously do all of my football stuff there. If I need to ice or recover before I go home, I do it at the stadium. That way I don't have to do it when I get home, when my son's going to want to play."

It's that commitment to family that Dove is highlighting in their new campaign. A commitment that Jordy Nelson and the Cardinals' Carson Palmer demonstrate daily. "Real strength to me is caring for other people," Nelson said.