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Every Sunday at 11 a.m., whether I’m at my apartment or not, the phone rings.

When I’m not there, the message always sounds like this: “Hi Jeffrey, this is your Papa. I guess I missed you, but hopefully I’ll catch you some time later.

“I love you, boy.”

And when I’m there, the voice on the phone always sounds like this: “Jeffrey! Oh, boy, how are ya, son?!”

I don’t know when this little tradition started between my grandfather, Alex Agase, and me. He probably doesn’t either. Like so many special things, it just kind of happened.

Without fail, Papa will call my apartment at 11 a.m. on Sunday. Some days, I’m still in bed. Other days, I’m gone for the weekend. But always, no matter what, we find a way to talk.

The conversation usually only lasts about 10 minutes, but I can tell by the way his voice lifts up when he hears me that it might be the highlight of his week.

Mitch Albom had “Tuesdays With Morrie.” I have Sundays With Papa.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Papa’s at his best on Sundays. After all, much of his life has been devoted to football, first as a player and then as a coach.

Papa is the only man to be named All-American at two different schools (he played guard at Illinois and Purdue), and when he moved on to the NFL, he played for the Cleveland Browns under the great Paul Brown.

As a coach at Northwestern and Purdue, Papa earned himself a reputation for scheduling tough opponents (“it is better to be devoured by lions than to be eaten by dogs,” he once said) and notoriety for upsetting them every once in a while.

Papa was the classic old school football coach. With a cigar hanging out of his mouth and a whistle swinging around his neck, he was a massive, imposing presence on the sidelines.

When reporters second-guessed some of his decisions following a particularly tough loss, Papa set them straight: “If you really want to advise me, do it on Saturday afternoon between 1 and 4 o’clock,” he said. “And you’ve got 25 seconds to do it, between plays. Not on Monday. I know the right thing to do on Monday.”

You know how it seems like everything Benjamin Franklin ever said was fit to be framed on a wall or printed in a book? Papa is the same way.

I asked him about that quote this week and wondered whether or not he got any royalties for it after it was printed in Fortune magazine and in some quote compilations.

“Oh, no,” he said, laughing. “But when you become a lawyer, I’ll hire you.”

Just a minute before that, he had told me, “as you get older, yesterday goes faster.”

I guess that might be the best part about talking to Papa. He can say in seven words something that takes anyone else 70.

Two football seasons ago, the then-6-0 Bruins lost a heartbreaking game to Stanford despite a near-miraculous comeback, which fell short when wide receiver Ryan Smith got his feet tied up with a defensive back and tripped.

“To win a championship,” he told me the next day, “You can’t just be good. You have to be good and lucky.”

Ironic, that a man whose mood once teetered on touchdowns and fumbles would be the one telling me to put sports into perspective. But he was right – it really was just a game.

Anybody could have told me that, but it just made sense coming from Papa.

Before I moved to California, Papa taught me the words to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” showed me the interlocking golf grip and made me a life-long Detroit Tiger fan (two out of three ain’t bad, he’d probably say).

But now that we’re 3,000 miles apart and Papa can’t travel (he’s had numerous heart surgeries and, like many former NFL players, has legs that don’t serve him so well), we have to settle for those 10 minutes Sunday morning.

Sundays With Papa. I guess they stay with me long after I hang up the phone.