COLLEGE STATION, Tex. — A long day spent with Johnny Manziel’s family ends in the secluded corner of a raucous party. It is late enough that Manziel’s grandmother Pat really gets going, talking about how a Manziel has never met a stranger, or always fights for a friend, about the good old boys who never grew up.

And then she tells a story. When Manziel’s father, John Paul Manziel, was young, he fought a boy named Clay every day in the schoolyard. Finally Pat got fed up and had the two boys settle their feud, once and for all, in her front yard.

She leaned against a post and watched, as Johnny’s grandfather, known as Big Paul, drove up and said, “Hit him with the right, John Paul!”

“Oh no, no, no, I got this handled,” Pat said, now cheering on Clay. “All right Clay, you get up and hit him with your left! Get him in the gut!”