Syracuse Football: Meet Jean, Orange Nation’s wonderful grandmother

I love a positive and heartfelt story about Syracuse football. This past week, I saw a tweet from one of my friends on Twitter about her mother and I had to share this story. I also want to nominate her as our Cuse Grandma.

Meet Jean Prego and her daughter, Michelle Milewski.

Michelle is part of the Orange Nation family/fan base on Twitter and along with her husband are season tickets holders for Syracuse football. Her mother and father (Jerry, who passed in 2010) took her to games when she was younger during the Donovan McNabb era but stopped going in the 2000s.

Jean lives in the Auburn area, comes from a sports family and has been a casual SU fan over the years. She grew up the daughter of the late Frank “Jazzbo” Rybash (a semipro baseball player) and the late Genevieve Rybash (a runner in her youth) so sports were a part of her life, including her daughter Michelle being a freelance sports reporter for about 15 years.

Let’s wish Syracuse football fan Jean Prago a belated happy birthday.

So why are we talking about Jean now? It turns out recently Jean has decided to turn that casual fandom into being a full-blown dedicated fan.

Before the pandemic, Michelle and her husband became season ticket holders and Jean wanted to be able to share this experience with them. Unfortunately, due to mobility issues, she’s unable to attend games but as she put it, “It was more important for me to be a fan,” so she could have more in common with her daughter. She is now a big Syracuse Orange fan, especially of the football team and specifically number 34, star running back Sean Tucker.

https://twitter.com/michelleamilew/status/1479616171855036416?s=21

She recently had her 79th birthday and her family held a Syracuse-themed birthday party during a Syracuse basketball game. Michelle shared this news on Twitter and many Syracuse fans took the opportunity to wish her a happy birthday…more than 350 in fact, and Michelle listed all the names on her birthday cards (it took two just to list all the names). And while unfortunately, Syracuse basketball lost the game at Wake Forest 77-74 in overtime, Jean was able to enjoy the celebration with family and her Syracuse Orange.

On behalf of the crew here at Inside The Loud House, we’d like to wish Jean a belated happy birthday. I would also like to nominate her as our unofficial Cuse Grandma. I mean how do you not love a woman who at 79 wants to be a bigger fan, share the experience with her family and is as sweet as she is in the video below?