Eric Rueb|The Providence Journal
The Hawes brothers get asked two questions a lot.
Are they triplets? No, despite all being seniors in high school,they’re not triplets. Whether it’s older brother Connor or younger twin brothers Austin and Logan,whenever someone meets the Exeter/West Greenwich/Prout football players for the first time, that’s something that always comes up.
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The second?
Is their dad the ghost hunter?
No need to reread that last sentence. You got it right the first time.
This time of year is a busy one for the Hawes family and maybe this year more so than any. Connor, Logan and Austin are playing for the Scarlet Knights, working hard to get the team qualified for the Division IV playoffs. Jason, their father, has the season premiere of his Syfy Channel show “Ghost Hunters” on Sunday and it’s not a coincidence that it falls on Halloween.
“October for me is like being Santa at Christmas,” Jason says. “When the boys were young, I used to do a lot of appearances, and I’d be everywhere for meet and greets and other things.
“As they’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to stay away to spend time with them, especially during seasons where they have their games and stuff like that.”
There aren’t many games left for the Hawes boys, who all start for E/WG/P. The Knights were 2-4 in D-IV play and needed one win this weekend against North Providence (the game was played after the Providence Journal went to press) or a victory next week against Hope to officially qualify for the playoffs, which would start the weekend of Nov. 6.
“Every single day it’s going through my mind. Four years of high school, I have a lot of memories to look back on,” Logan says. “This is the last year of sports and it’s a lot to take in. I played with my two brothers and it’s a lot of pressure knowing after this season, I’m not going to be playing with them again.”
“It definitely makes me sad that we don’t have that much time together,” Austin says. “I’ve been playing football since I was 5, so we’ve been playing for a long time. I just love the sport and there’s been nothing better than my high school experience.”
The high school experience hasn’t been without plenty of questions, but those come with the territory when your dad is literally known to millions as The Ghost Hunter.
Jason is a Rhode Island transplant, having moved to Warwick when he was young before graduating from Toll Gate. The paranormal was a subject he was interested in and prior to the Internet becoming what it is now, he created a website that became the place to go for people who had questions about it.
That led to TV shows, a New York Times article and soon enough, TV people seeing if he wanted to be a part of his own show. He passed on that until one day an offer came up that he couldn’t say no to, even if the timing was a little tough.
“I started filming "Ghost Hunters" when my sons were 4 days old,” Jason says. “When I got the call, I was still in the hospital room where they had just been born.”
The boys are three of six Hawes children, but their older sisters were around when Jason was just dad the plumber and not dad the ghost hunter.
Of course, to them, he’s just dad.
“I don’t think about it very much. The show’s been going on my entire life,” Logan says. “It just goes over my head at this point.”
“Sometimes I think about it and it is pretty cool,” Austin says. “But like Logan said, we just don’t think about it. It’s just whatever.”
Living in Rhode Island — where getting interviewed on the news makes you a celebrity — Jason has avoided the attention and tried to live a life of normalcy.
Inevitably though, someone finds out.
“I almost never bring it up. I just try to be me, but eventually, my friends or someone will connect the dots and be like ‘wait, could you be related?’ And then they’ll bring up my father,” Logan says. “Yeah, I’m his son. They’re always like ‘I can’t believe I’m next to this person who’s dad is that guy,’ but I kind of got used to the feeling.”
“Living in a small community, most people around here are used to it,” Jason says. “At a big pasta night, a bunch of kids who never met me wanted to talk about it because they had seen the show and watched it. I know the boys get a lot of questions, but to them it’s the norm because it’s all they’ve grown up with.”
Football is something else they’ve grown up with.
It’s been a constant competition since they were little, with one brother trying to outdo the other. Most times, it’s a good thing and leads to healthy practices. On some occasions, the brothers turn into brothers and want to rip each other’s heads off.
But regardless of how angry they might get, they’re always there for each other.
“I’m having a good year so far, but I can’t sit here and say that it wasn’t because of my brothers,” Logan says. “Me being able to go 1-on-1 and trying to cover Connor, going 1-on-1 and trying to tackle Austin. All of that has helped me in high school and made me a better player.”
“We’re always competing with each other, trying to do whatever to get better,” Austin says. “It makes us work hard and it’s great. Once we see someone do good, one of the brothers, it makes us want to be even better.”
Each is a decidedly different football player.
Connor looks the part. He’s 6-foot-3, 200 pounds and has been a force for the Knights at wide receiver. Austin is 6-1, 210 pounds, and is a devastating hitter.
“He hit me once and it felt like 400 pounds of force,” Logan says. “It was like getting hit by a tow truck.”
Logan, the baby of the family, is the smallest in the family at 5-8, 160 pounds. Don’t let his size fool you. He’s got a motor that doesn’t stop. On the field, he uses his speed whenever E/WG/P needs him to use it.
“So I’m not as fast as Logan and I’m not as tall as Connor,” Austin says. “I’m just right in between and got a little bit of both of them.”
Saturday’s game against North Providence will be the final home game of the regular season for the Hawes brothers. They’ll be on the road next week against Hope and if they qualify for the playoffs, on the road again against whatever team they play.
They are scheduled to play at home one more time when the Knights take on Narragansett on Thanksgiving Day.
Jason will be there. While Halloween is a busy season for work, on Thanksgiving he’ll just be Jason Hawes, plumber and father of three boys playing their final high school football game together.
No ghost hunter. Just a proud dad.
“You’re living through them and it’s such an honor to be able to do that,” Jason says. “My boys, and all my kids, have made me extremely proud.”
