It would be fair to claim that Jack Rhodes was a winner when it came to the lottery of birth simply by taking a glance at the two names of the people who claimed parentage on his birth certificate. Olivia Rhodes was an actress known for her beauty and fashion in the Hollywood machine, whilst her husband Frank was not only a star in the National Football League, but a hero, which in a nation as fervent about their football as America is practically made him a god in his heyday. Yes, to look at his life on paper it would be fair for any casual observer to claim that the young boy had been gifted a charmed life from the moment he came screaming into the world on March 27th, 1987 at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA. Indeed, for Jack there was never a time in his life where he was not surrounded by his family's material wealth. Whether he was four or fourteen it was never a question of if he would be able to get each and every extravagant gift he reached for but a question of when in a world where when was not a matter of weeks but days or hours if not instantaneous. Summers away from his top tier private schools were spent on lavish vacations all over the world in decadent summer homes, and the moment he expressed any kind of lasting interest in a sport (in his case hockey) he awoke the next morning to a hoard of the best gear and equipment money could buy... and probably a training coach or two strapped to the boxes for good measure. Even if he was only five at the time.

Of course, no family is perfect least of all the Rhodes. Once the adoring crowd disappeared into their cars for the long drive home and the lights fell away so, too, did the family's mask of perfection. Behind closed doors the man who everyone hailed as a hero transformed into a monster the second alcohol touched his lips, and as his career on the field came to an end it became rarer and rarer to see the man without a bottle clenched in his hands even as he began regularly appearing on ESPN panels. Even being able to purchase a small stake in his team did nothing to temper his father's violent outbursts which often resulted in the berating of his children, mostly mentally but occasionally physically as well. And if Jack was counting on his mother to shield him from his father's tirades he learned early on that her concerns started and ended with the camera, and it was all too easy for her to pass off any and all physical evidence as a result of rough hockey plays.

By the time high school rolled around Jack was finding every excuse in the book to spend his time outside of the home as possible whether it was going out with his friends until all hours of the night, eating way too many dinners with his girlfriend and her parents than any normal teen boy should like, or putting in so much extra time at the rink he may as well have purchased a bed to put in the lockerroom. However, if there were any thoughts of rebelling against his parents' perfectly crafted public image on Jack's mind as he entered his teenage years they were quickly put to bed by his love of hockey and desire to make it to the NHL. Ever since he could remember being on the ice had always felt more like home to Jack than any of his parents' spawling mansions ever did. Somehow the sheets of frigid ice underneath his feet never held a candle to how cold his father's eyes looked when he was in one of his moods. And sure, there was often an angry man shouting at him from the sidelines to move faster or to keep his head up so but at least those screams came from a desire to help him improve his game rather than cut him off at the knees. However, for the middle Rhodes boy the best part of hockey wasn't the roar of the crowd when he scored a goal or crushed someone with an open ice hit (though let's be honest it wouldn't be quite as fun without it) but being a part of a team; a family who he knew would have his back no matter what happened.

Jack's road to the NHL didn't go through the OHL, though that was the route he would have chosen if he'd been given the choice by his parents, but the NCAA where he attended Boston University; playing for the terriers his freshman year before entering the draft in 2006 where he was selected by the Philadelphia Flyers. He would spend his first year as a pro playing for the Flyer's AHL affiliate, the Philadelphia Phantoms, before making the big club the following season in 2007. Playing in the NHL was a dream come true for Jack whose style of play was that of a prototypical power forward, which fit seamlessly with a team that'd long since earned the moniker of the Broadstreet Bullies, and if anyone would've told him at the time that he would voluntarily retire in first a few short years he would have laughed them out of the building. Unfortunately, that was exactly what happened. With the family being a part owner of an NFL franchise, his father a former player, and himself an athlete at Boston University, Jack had been partially aware of the growing talk among a small part of the medical community that was linking repeated concussions with long term brain diseases such as dementia and cte (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) in former NFL players (and later on contact sports as a whole).

As with most athletes in the beginning Jack didn't give the growing talk much thought as the majority of talk still centered on the National Football League, preferring to push any worries that might've cropped up to the back of his mind but by 2008 researchers from Boston University were pushing the issue into the mainstream media making it all the harder to avoid. Still. He did. Until the end of the '08-'09 season when he was hit questionably in a rivalry game and was diagnosed with his first concussion. All of that time off for recovery meant he could do some research into what exactly he might be signing himself up for, and what he discovered wasn't something he wanted to further potentially risk for himself. Although it broke his heart to do so Jack decided to retire from the sport, citing nothing more than personal reasons when asked why he'd done so.

Instead of lazing around on the couch however Jack decided to follow in his mother and brother's footsteps and try his hand at acting. His family, after all, had the connections so he may as well explore the option. It wasn't long before the male was able to get an audition for a role in The Social Network through his brother Rhodie, who had already been cast as one of the movie's major roles. Ah nepotism at it's finest. And somehow entirely fitting for the roles of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, two jock Harvard students who hailed from a wealthy family. Not exactly a couple of characters he had to stretch his imagination to portray. The movie's critical hit opened up even more doors for Jack, most of which were roles in less than stellar films, but one just so happened to be as Bucky Barnes in Captain America. Since then he's stuck mostly to supporting roles in bigger budget affairs, and has had a few attempts at lead parts in movies that haven't exactly lit the world on fire, but with the Marvel films keeping his name out there he's been able to find work in the industry.