HOUSTON -- As the child understood it, he had a rock inside his head. He was at the hospital to have that rock removed and once doctors did that, he would feel better.
That's how Jumal Rolle and Takeria Daniels explained a brain tumor to their 3-year-old son Jumal Jr., a happy child who always did what his parents told him to do without questions. The adults were more concerned than he about the surgery.
Jumal Jr. spent two weeks in the hospital this past summer having the tumor drained before it would be removed. One day, he started to play a gospel song on his iPad and all the adults in his hospital room burst into tears. He didn't understand why everyone was crying.
"I was surprised that he even knew the song," said Rolle, 24, a cornerback for the Houston Texans. "I was also surprised that he was in the mood for that type of thing. It was kind of sad because it kind of came out of nowhere. It touched everybody."
Jumal Jr. had surgery in September. The tumor was removed and hasn't returned. His father thinks about him every day at work in the NFL. From the time he arrived in Houston, his teammates could see a player for whom the game meant something.
"He wasn't just going through the motions," Texans starting cornerback Johnathan Joseph said.
The game and the health insurance that comes with it is a way for Rolle to take care of his son, who will need medication for the rest of his life. His drive to succeed also fulfills a promise he made to his mother two years ago while she lay on her deathbed. It might be why he has so quickly come in and become an important role player for the Texans. Entering as a reserve when injuries tested the Texans' depth at cornerback earlier this season, Rolle now leads the Texans with three interceptions.
A supporting role is one with which he's very comfortable.
Rolle was 21 when his son was born in Feb. 11, 2011. He was attending school and playing football at Catawba College. It was a two-and-half-hour drive from his family's home in Wilson, North Carolina.
"I couldn't believe it actually that I was responsible for another human being," he said. "That's one of the craziest things ever. It's one of the greatest gifts I can ever have."
While Rolle and Daniels, who have been friends since childhood, finished school, Rolle's mother Letitia took care of the baby they called Juju. She raised him as long as she could, but her health was deteriorating. A lifetime of smoking had left Letitia Rolle with a disease called sarcoidosis. She needed an oxygen tank for the final years of her life.
"He was very, very protective of her," said Angela Harris, his mother's best friend. "He was very protective of his mom. Whatever he could do for her, he would do. ... He was a momma's boy."
In early 2012, his mother's condition had deteriorated to the point that she needed help with her daily tasks. In January, Jumal's older sister Tinija moved from Selma, North Carolina, where she was raised by her dad and stepmom, to Wilson to become her mom's caretaker. Jumal, who is the youngest of four, called his mom every day from college -- sometimes multiple times a day. They talked for hours.
In July 2012, just before Jumal's senior year of college, his mom made her final hospital stay.
One day Tinija went to pick up some clothes at the house. Letitia told her not to worry about clothes; she wanted her black notepad. In it, she planned out her funeral service.
"When she showed me the notebook and told me to read it, I said, 'Momma, why are we talking about this?'" Tinija recalled.
Letitia called Jumal a final time to ask how he was doing; he told her he was fine and updated her on his NFL preparations. A tear rolled from his face and onto his sweatshirt as he recalled those last moments.
"You ask me if it's still fresh," he said. "Anytime I think about her, I can see her as clear as day."
She died July 14, 2012, before he could get to the hospital. When he arrived, he asked for some time alone with his mom.
"I told her that I just wouldn't ever give up on her," Jumal said. "I was going to do what I had to do to succeed. She'd seen me playing football, so I wanted to make sure I got to the highest level if I had control of it. That was pretty much it. I just wanted to make it for her."
After graduating from college in 2013, Rolle spent some time with the Buffalo Bills and New Orleans Saints as an undrafted rookie. He spent most of 2013 on the Green Bay Packers' practice squad and returned for the next season.
In March 2014, with Rolle home during a break in his football schedule, Jumal Jr. complained that both his head and stomach hurt. At first, Rolle thought his son was feigning illness to stay home with his dad. When the vomiting started, Rolle thought it was just a virus he picked up at school.
But Jumal Jr. wouldn't eat -- not even his favorite, Chick-fil-A. He grew tired and thirsty easily and began to lose an alarming amount of weight. He was also constantly tired. This went on for weeks. Harris thought he might be diabetic.
Rolle left for organized team activities in Green Bay, hoping Jumal Jr.'s condition would improve while he was gone. It didn't, so Rolle and Daniels saw a doctor in Charlotte. He said their son had a cystic tumor on his pituitary gland that was altering his body's function. A dangerous operation to remove the tumor awaited.
"The situation that (Rolle) has going on with his son and had going on early in his childhood kind of made him mature and look at things from a different perspective. And he lost his mom when he was young. That all has to do with it. He had to grow up." Johnathan Joseph, Texans starting cornerback
"I couldn't think straight," Rolle said. "It was frustrating. I was like, 'I just really started healing up good from my mom passing away.'"
Said Daniels: "We questioned ourselves for about a good week. When we first found out, it was just like: Why? Why, why, why, why?"
From June 27 to July 9, an off portion of the NFL's offseason programs, Jumal Jr. was in the hospital having the cyst drained. In September, the Packers let Rolle take a week away from the team to be with his son for surgery to remove the tumor.
"That was another motive to make sure I didn't take work for granted," Rolle said. "I needed to do what I needed to do to make sure his surgery was paid for."
On Oct. 1, a week after his son's surgery, the Texans signed Rolle off the Packers' practice squad, giving him an opportunity he knew he had to seize. Rolle quickly became an integral part of the Texans' rotation. He found an ally in Joseph, who recognized both a fellow Carolinan (Joseph is from South Carolina) and a young father forced to grow up quickly.
"The situation that he has going on with his son and had going on early in his childhood kind of made him mature and look at things from a different perspective," Joseph said. "And he lost his mom when he was young. That all has to do with it. He had to grow up."
His biggest role now is on special teams, but Rolle fit in well on a ball-hawking Texans defense that leads the NFL in turnovers. Helping when injuries plagued the Texans' secondary, Rolle picked off two passes on Nov. 2 against the Philadelphia Eagles and one more against the Tennessee Titans.
"The thing that I noticed about him right off the bat, regardless of systems, is that he's an instinctive player," Texans coach Bill O'Brien said. "He's always around the ball and he has good ball skills. He's able to catch the football, which sounds simple, but some guys they really have to work at that. Jumal has really good ball skills."
Rolle puts it like this: "The ball kind of finds me for some odd reason."
Up in North Carolina, Rolle's family gathers at a local Buffalo Wild Wings to watch Texans games. When Jumal Jr. sees his father on TV, he tells his relatives, "There goes my daddy!" They'll ask what number his daddy wears, and he'll proudly tell them, "20."
He's even taken to imitating some of the moves he has seen Rolle make on TV.
Last week he had a follow-up MRI that showed no tumor had returned. The surgery succeeded, though he'll have to take medication for the rest of his life to mimic the function of the pituitary gland which was also removed.
Growing up, Rolle says didn't know his father well because he spent most of Rolle's childhood incarcerated.
"I just always wanted to know what it was like to have a dad that you listen to and you have setting examples for you and that you get advice from," Rolle said.
He strives to make sure his son doesn't feel that way.
"As a parent, he makes sure he has everything," Daniels said. He talks to his son every day, just as once he used to talk to his mother every day. During games he says he still feels his mom's presence, and can still hear her voice screaming from the 50-yard line like she used to when he played at Catawba.
Every day of work matters to Rolle because every day he remembers why he needs to succeed.