Cheesehead
Well-known member
- Mar 19, 2019
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GREEN BAY – Tammy and Bob Tonyan have traveled anywhere, and everywhere, to see their son play the game he loves.
This is the same couple who once put 44,000 miles on a car traversing the country when Robert Jr. was playing football at Indiana State, while his older sister, Danielle, starred in volleyball at Bowling Green.
Tammy is the ball of energy driving the family forward, the unapologetically positive mom who once placed a sign reading only "Smile" at the bottom of the staircase in the family's 100-year-old house in McHenry, Ill., to remind her children every morning to be thankful for the new day they've been awarded.
When Robert started youth league baseball, Tammy gave her two-week notice at the local hospital she worked at for 20 years and started her own cleaning business, because she didn't want to miss any games or after-school activities.
On this particular evening, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the closest the Tonyans could get to watching their son play his 31st career NFL game was at The Turn, the Topgolf-inspired restaurant a block away from Lambeau Field.
Tammy and Bob, accompanied by family friends, grabbed a table in their own secluded area and settled in to watch the Packers host the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football.
What happened over the course of those next three hours is something the Tonyans won't soon forget, as Robert scored not once, not twice, but three times in a commanding 30-16 victory, nearly doubling his career totals over the span of four quarters.
"I just couldn't believe it," Tammy Tonyan said. "It's like, 'Oh my gosh, I cannot believe this is my life.' I'm actually watching my son on TV and he's scoring three touchdowns. Who can say that?"
Ten years earlier, nobody saw this coming. Well, except maybe the Tonyans. Back then, no matter how tired she felt, Tammy would spend hours every night – typically from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. – penning emails to Division I schools on Robert's behalf.
She didn't know what she was doing. There was no manual at the local bookstore for how to get college football programs to look at your son. But she knew her son had talent, real talent, and was willing to put in the time to make sure it didn't go unnoticed.
Everyone had a part to play in the process. It started with Bob building a master list of every D-I program they could find, FBS or FCS, while Robert hunkered down in the McHenry Community High computer lab in search of teams in need of a quarterback.
Working off Bob's list, Tammy found the name of the head coach, quarterbacks coach and recruiting coordinator at every school, and started firing off emails. Sometimes she'd even look for tidbits on their off-the-field interests. If the head coach was an avid golfer, she'd personalize the email with that nugget.
Each correspondence was original. Nothing was ever copied-and-pasted, though most started in a similar fashion:
"Hi, my name is Robert Tonyan. I'm a quarterback at McHenry-East Campus in Illinois. If you could take the time to look at my film on YouTube, I'm very interested in your program..."