KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – As Chase McGrath lined up the game-winning field goal Saturday night, Tennessee fans all around the state were as tense as they’d been all day. Once the ball cleared the uprights, that nervousness turned into unfathomable joy, but for a woman in Chattanooga it turned out to be the very thing that brought her third child into the world.
Jordan Johnson watched the game from her home in Chattanooga, and at 38 weeks pregnant, she began to feel contractions but wasn’t focused on them enough to know what was happening.
“I was like I don’t know what’s happening with my body right now, I’m sitting here on the couch watching this game,” said Johnson.
It didn’t set in until she went to bed that night and the adrenaline from the game wore off, but she knew at that point her daughter was on the way and she was going into labor. At 38 weeks it’s not uncommon to go into labor, but the Chattanooga native firmly believes it was her screaming, jumping, and cheering during the game that induced labor that night.
“I think me jumping up and down, it picked things up. They say that you can walk and induce contractions to get things going but I was clearly jumping up and down and doing a bit more than walking,” said Johnson.
A few hours after midnight, Johnson gave birth to her third child, a daughter, who goes by the name Heidi Chase. A middle name that endured a lot of debate, mainly because of what happened in the game the night before.
Ultimately, Johnson decided to give Heidi the middle name of Chase after Vols’ kicker Chase McGrath.
“When we put together Heidi Chase we loved it but it was going to be between that and Heidi Jean which was my grandmother’s middle name. And we loved them both so much and we couldn’t decide. So at about day two in the hospital we put both names in a cup and shook them up and it came down to the last minute and Chase won again,” said Johnson.
McGrath saw the story and reached out on Instagram to Johnson to congratulate her and acknowledge the new name.
“Wow! That’s amazing. Congrats on the beautiful baby girl! Love the name! go Vols,” said McGrath in an Instagram message to Johnson.
In this family passion for Tennessee football runs deep. So much so, that in 2018 Neyland Stadium was the place Johnson got engaged to her now husband Ryan.
With the addition of Heidi Chase, Johnson said the Vols fandom will only grow stronger.
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