NFL Coach Searches for Truth About Past. Never Expected To Be Standing Next to Birth Father
People are who people are, but they never exist in isolation. In fact, family is one of our most important social constructs.
I like to think of the whole thing as a framed picture. The picture shows what the picture shows.
But the frame sets it off in a certain way, provides a particular context. And when that context is missing, the picture seems to lack a certain something.
At least Deland McCullough seemed to think that it did. According to Arrowhead Pride, the Kansas City Chiefs’ running backs coach knew little of his background except that he’d been raised in an orphanage.
ESPN reported that his adoptive mother, Adelle Comer, would never provide any more information. She simply said that she knew little more than he did.
The lack of knowledge about his biological parents did little to dampen McCullough’s competitive spirit, though. He pursued high-school football with a passion, and one day, that passion paid off.
He was in the middle of a class when he looked out the window and saw a Mercedes-Benz pull up outside of the school. A few minutes later, McCullough was told to head to the office.
The man in the luxurious car was Sherman Smith, a running backs coach at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He wanted to recruit McCullough.
“It was just something about his personality, the way he presented himself,” McCullough said. “He had things that I hadn’t seen out of a man or mentor.”
Indeed, Smith became something of a fixture in McCullough’s life, guiding him through his time on the team at Miami University and following the young running back’s career as he played for the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals and signed on for a few years in the Canadian Football League. But a number of knee injuries brought his career on the field to a close.
After that, he got involved in the administration of a local high school and began yearning to become a football coach. So he did what came naturally: He applied for a position at Miami University and called Smith, who was with the Seattle Seahawks at this time, for advice.
Smith gave him some, and when a few years had passed, he invited him to Washington for an internship. Little did either man know, their friendship was about to change into something else entirely.
In 2017, McCullough took advantage of new legislation passed in Pennsylvania that allowed adopted children to learn more about their birth parents. He discovered that his mother was Carol Denise Briggs, but the state didn’t have any information about his biological father.
That was intentional; Briggs had hidden the identity of her baby’s father for forty years. But when McCullough approached her, she decided it was time for the truth to come out.
After that meeting, McCullough called Smith and told him that he’d found his birth mother. Smith was thrilled for him.
“Praise the Lord!” he said. “What a blessing!”
He wasn’t prepared for the next revelation, though. “I asked her who my biological father was,” McCullough said, “and she said you.”
Smith was beyond floored. He’d had a brief relationship with Carol Briggs the summer before he’d left for college and had never known about the pregnancy.
While he was at Miami University, Smith recalled how he “would tell the players, ‘You may not be looking for a father, but I’m going to treat you like you’re my sons.’ … I just wanted to be a positive role model for Deland and exemplify what I thought my father exemplified for me.”
A positive role model, indeed. Little did Smith realize that the young running back so often standing next to him was his son in truth.
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