Solved: The mystery of the American football star’s Welsh tattoos
Tyson Bagent is an up and coming name in the world of American Football.
As a college football star, he smashed records and now hopes to do the same in the NFL.
The young quarterback who plays for the Chicago Bears was recently pictured on social media with two prominent tattoos in Welsh on his chest.
There was the word ‘teulu’ which means ‘family’ in Welsh, then there was a block of Welsh words tattooed underneath an image of a plane.
The words read: ‘Teimlais fy holl mywyd fy mod i fod i hedfan’ which translates as ‘My whole life, I have felt like I am meant to fly’.
Look at this. @NFL & @ChicagoBears QB @tysbagent has some #Cymraeg #Welsh tatooed on his chest.
โTEULUโ is Welsh for family.
I wonder how he came to have this as his tatoo? #NFL #DaBears pic.twitter.com/FganOuXFK3
— Efan ap Ifor ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ท๓ ฌ๓ ณ๓ ฟ (@EfanIfor) March 8, 2024
The 23-yea-old grew up in Martinsburg in West Virginia and played university football for the Shepherd Rams breaking a number of college passing records before joining the Chicago Bears in 2023, where he was back-up quarterback before breaking into the team as a starter.
In 2019 there were pictures of him with only one tattoo on his body, the word ‘teulu’ on his chest. He has now added to his ink collection, with the Welsh quote.
Thanks to the online detective work of Sgorio commentator Mei Emrys, who unearthed an interview with Tyson where he explains why he has the tattoos, the mystery can be solved – the young NFL star says he’s Welsh!
DIRGELWCH WEDI EI DDATRYS!
Mae taid Tyson Bagent yn Gymro! Gweler y fideo yma (ewch i 1:24.07):https://t.co/dfxIHhtSsn
Dwi'n 99% sicr mai at ei daid ar ochr ei fam mae o'n cyfeirio, achos 'Humphreys' yw cyfenw chwaer ei fam.
๐๐บ๐ธ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ท๓ ฌ๓ ณ๓ ฟ๐@NewyddionS4C @EfanIfor @PopethNFLCymru https://t.co/TyONEbw1Ut
— Mei Emrys (@MeiEms) March 11, 2024
In answering a question from a fan on why he had ‘teulu’ on his chest and what it meant, he explained: “It’s the first one I ever got. It means family in Welsh.
“My grandad is Welsh. I got it because I’m a big family guy. I’m Welsh. I’ve got Welsh in me. So it’s a family tattoo.”
When you consider that Tyson is from West Virginia it makes sense. There was a sizeable influx of Welsh immigrants, especially those that worked in the industries of tin, steel and coal to the area in the 1800s.
He comes from something of a star-studded family. If you thought Tyson had a strong arm, then his father Travis is a multiple arm-wrestling world champion, so it obviously runs in the family.
And there we all were thinking that Louis Rees-Zammit was going to be the latest Welshman to play in the NFL.
Let’s hope LRZ is successful in his NFL quest and ends up at the Chicago Bears. Just imagine one Welshman throwing the ball for another Welshman to catch it!
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Fascinating to know. And seeing he’s only 23 still, hopefully becomes a NFL star, can only be good for Wales. Although I am aware certain parts of the US had a large influx from Wales. For example, Ohio, Oregon Pennsylvania ect. So not really a surprise. Also, Wales played a huge part of American history but our immense input goes unrecognised, largey because we don’t shout loud enough not only in Wales but those in America. Coincidentally Wales produced some great baseball players too, in particular was Welsh born and hailing from Swansea. He was also a great friend of… Read more »
Diddorol erioed wedi clywed amdano. Diolch.
Nice, glad to hear some people in America are not ditching their ties to the homeland in favour of Claiming they are Irish and English. Many unfortunately do exactly that, Upwards of 11million people have Name origins from Wales, yet only 1.9 claim ties. Something doesnโt add up.
There are.plenty of black Americans with Welsh origin surnames (like Evans and Jones) which would have come from Welsh/Welsh descended slave owners or similar (it was common for slaves to take the surnames of their masters), so there are many who won’t have actual Welsh ancestry just from that.
I have heard this many times, but it seems very odd that the Welsh – being a minority of immigrants and not wealthy ones at that – should be so highly represented amongst slave owners. In addition the southern states are not known for being a major home to Welsh settlers – Pennsylvania had the Welsh tract and gave birth to place names like Brynmawr, where are such equivalents in the south?