It goes God, family, football. That’s usually the mantra on most football fields around the US. NFL coaches Sherman Smith and Deland McCullough just added the element of fate to that equation after discovering their mentor-mentee relationship was actually a biological father-son bond.
These days, very few football details escape the dedicated fan, so they might already know Smith and McCullough are both highly sought-after running back coaches with Super Bowl rings to their names. Some might even know the two had short-lived playing careers that ended due to similar knee injuries. We’ll even give some the benefit of the doubt and assume they already knew Smith mentored McCullough from the very start — but not a single person knew they were actually father and son, not even the two themselves.
Smith was orphaned at birth and adopted by a single parent in Youngstown, Ohio. He showed promise in high school football as a prospective running back, and later, Smith recruited McCullough for the Miami RedHawks. In an interview with TODAY, Smith shared that he treats his players like his children because that’s the only way he knows how to guide them — sort of like Denzel Washington in Remember The Titans — but more on that later.
For McCullough, this connection was all the more special because he never had that kind of fatherly love in his life. He welcomed it, and throughout the years, they would share milestones, with McCullough often going to Smith for advice even after he was no longer his coach.
When McCullough started his own family, he decided to finally look into his roots. He searched local records and was able to locate and reunite with his biological mother. McCullough shared that the meeting went well and that he was surprised to learn she had always lived just minutes away throughout his childhood. Family reunion stories are always heartwarming, and McCullough could have left it at that, but he also wanted to know who his birth father was — and his mother said, “Sherman Smith.”
When McCullough broke the news to his longtime father figure that he was his actual father, Smith just hugged him and said, “My son.” Even fellow coaches who have worked with both of them now laugh at how their mannerisms had always been similar on the training grounds.
Smith believes this was a divine situation: “This is God directing our steps,” he said. He explained that he knew McCullough’s mother when they were in high school, but she never told him they had a child. McCullough has since written a book titled Runs in the Family: An Incredible True Story of Football, Fatherhood, and Belonging, chronicling their journey as father and son.
They’re now looking to turn it into a movie. Smith isn’t shy about who he wants to play him either — Denzel Washington. And perhaps that would be the perfect movie to finally bring together Denzel Washington and his own son, John David Washington, without having to dodge all those pesky “nepo baby” questions during the press run.
Football truly brings families together.
