From brotherly love to Brotherly Love: How sibling competition helped drive Will Shipley to the Eagles

James and Will Shipley are brothers, and brothers, especially the competitive types, sometimes settle things with a little physicality.

“Oh yeah. We got after it,” Will said last week at Eagles rookie camp.

James, two years older than Will, once beat his younger brother in a video game, probably FIFA, and Will grabbed a pull-up bar off the wall and swung it at James. He missed, but the wall suffered some damage.

“When I would lose, I would be getting after him,” Will said. A physical basketball game could end with James pinning Will down and not letting him move until he calmed down.

“We did everything competitively,” James said. “Everything you did, you did to win.”

The Shipleys have done a lot of winning. They were state champions in football, lacrosse, and track at Weddington High School in Matthews, N.C. They were straight-A students, Will even finishing his Clemson degree in three years with a 4.0 grade-point average. Their parents had instilled in them a structure. Faith and family came first, then academics, sports, and social life.

The brothers have another thing in common now, too: Philadelphia. James, 23, just wrapped up a lacrosse career at Penn, while Will, 21, is beginning life in the NFL after the Eagles drafted him in the fourth round.

The brotherly competition may not be the only reason Will, a running back, has ended up in the NFL, but it’s a big one.

“I think that mentality is kind of how we both drive ourselves today, this mentality that’s, like, how you do anything is how you do everything,” James said. “Any action you take, any activity you’re part of, give it everything you have. I think that definitely shows in Will in everything he does.”

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Both brothers said it was around the time James went to college that they became closest, but Weddington football coach Andy Capone said he saw it developing when they were teens. Will wasn’t yet at the high school, but James, as a sophomore during a state championship season, made sure everyone knew how big of an impact Will was going to have when he arrived.

“They were just best friends,” Capone said. “They loved each other and competed with each other, but they had each other’s backs no matter what. Even though Will was the younger brother, he made sure everyone knew he had James’ back.”

James was right about the impact.

Capone was Weddington’s offensive coordinator when Will entered high school. The team had an older running back at the time, and Capone gave him the ball on the first play in the first scrimmage. The next play, Will’s first competitive snap in high school, Weddington threw Will a screen out in open space.

“He goes 75 [yards] to the house,” Capone said. “After that I was like, ‘Yeah, this guy is going to be unbelievable.’”

Capone said he saw up close how James’ being there as an older brother helped Will. The two even started next to each other at safety.

Weddington won a state title when Will was a sophomore, in James’ senior season, and then won again the following year.

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But one of the things that still bothers Capone is that he didn’t get Will for a fourth season. The Warriors were going for a three-peat, but the COVID-19 pandemic moved the season to the spring.

“Will was on the fence,” Capone said. “I was like, ‘You need to go to Clemson and start working on what you’ve dreamed of doing.’

“That’s probably one of the things I hate the most. You get what you feel like is a generational talent and we didn’t get to coach him his senior year.”

Capone has kept in touch with both brothers. In early March, he saw Penn lacrosse play against North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where James scored two fourth-quarter goals in a 13-9 defeat.

Will was back in town ahead of the draft working out at the high school days before being selected by Capone’s favorite team. The coach grew up in Connecticut and concedes that he should like the Patriots but “hates them.”

He said it was probably the bird logo that turned him on to the Eagles as a kid, but Philadelphia was a perfect landing spot for Will.

Asked why Will would make it in the NFL, when nothing is ever guaranteed in the league, especially for fourth-round running backs who stand at 5-foot-11 and 206 pounds, Capone pointed to the competitiveness. He said he showed his team the video clip of Eagles general manager Howie Roseman talking about Will after the Eagles drafted him. Roseman mentioned the person and competitor. Capone said he has never seen a competitor like Will, a point he’s trying to drive home to his current bunch.

“We talk about it as a team,” Capone said. “He was a 4.0 at Clemson because he wanted to beat everybody. I saw it at [high] school. He took a test, and got a 98 and a kid got a 99, he was pissed.”

Will, Capone said, saved tweets and other social media posts dating to when he committed to Clemson. There was no way, many said by looking at him, that Will would hold up as a running back in college. That, Capone said, was nothing new. It was the standard line early on in Will’s recruiting process.

“People didn’t believe he could run like he did,” Capone said. “People didn’t believe he could stay as a back. They all thought he would be a slot receiver. I said, ‘Nah, y’all are missing it.’

“I’m sure anybody that gets a chance in the league is competitive, but Will finds something new to carry on his shoulder as a chip and uses that as extra motivation.”

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If Capone got to coach Will that final high school season, he’d have gotten a guy who was probably in the best shape of his young life.

The pandemic stopped motion in March 2020, and James returned home to North Carolina from Penn, his freshman year nearly finished.

The Shipley family had an old wooden shed in the backyard, and the brothers needed access to a gym. So like many people confined to their homes during the pandemic, they found a way to make it work.

“Obviously there’s not much to do at that time, we’re all stuck in the house and not able to get to a gym,” James said. “We’re like, ‘Hey, we’ve got this big shed empty in the backyard, let’s turn it into something.’

They turned it into the Shred Shed, a makeshift gym, and their mother, Tammy, even painted a logo on it.

It was a place to continue training for their respective sports, but also a place for their brotherly bond to grow even closer.

“Me and him spent a lot of time in there together over COVID, which I think was some special time that we didn’t necessarily expect to get but got to get,” James said.

During Will’s time at Clemson, he made trips to Philadelphia to see his brother and explore University City. There are familiar faces on the Penn lacrosse team, some of whom Will played against during high school, so it won’t be a surprise to see Will at Penn games next spring.

James won’t be far. He’s graduating from Penn this month and heading to New York to work at a start-up with a few friends. James already had an introduction to Eagles games thanks to a Penn friend whose parents had season tickets. There’s extra incentive to be an Eagles fan now.

When Will arrived in Philadelphia last week for rookie camp, it all started to hit him.

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“I don’t think I’ve stopped smiling since yesterday at noon when I got here,” he said.

“This is where I’m at. This is where I’m staying, and I couldn’t be more happy.”

In a familiar place, his brother and best friend a short train ride away. Those brotherly childhood fights? Maybe they were all worth it, too.

“I’m so thankful for him,” Will said of James. “Not only has he paved the way for me and helped me out, but just everything I’ve done he’s been a trailblazer for me — just a complete role model, someone I look up to. I love him to death.”