During the 2024 NFL Draft in Detroit, I think I received a message from my mother

The blue skies and warm temperatures couldn’t stop me from putting on my favorite NFL team sweatshirt and heading to the NFL Draft in downtown Detroit last month with my son 12 and a half years old.

Before we go any further, this trip isn’t about my most beloved team, which I know is probably not the case. your most loved team.

It’s about the love of a mother, of a stranger, and how fate made these two things collide in a very unusual way.

Many of us have NFL Draft stories: More than 775,000 of us turned out at Hart Plaza and Campus Martius Park during the draft in Detroit, held April 25-27 .

Many others worked as police officers, food service workers, bartenders, cleaning crews, or attended other draft-related events nearby.

My story draft is emotional, and it’s fitting that it happened just a few weeks before Mother’s Day.

Black and gold, in a blue Honolulu field

You see, my mother was a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. I was watching Steelers football in my stomach.

As a product of Southwestern Pennsylvania, I bleed black and gold, just like most of you bleed Honolulu Blue.

My mother died when my son was five months old. She spent the last years of her life and her decades-long battle with MS in a nursing home in my hometown, Uniontown, about an hour south of Pittsburgh. She only held her only grandchild once.

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She passed on her love of the Steelers to me. And I passed on my love for the Steelers – much to my husband’s chagrin (I won’t mention his most beloved team, but it’s a bitter rival of my team) – to our son.

But don’t worry, our little man born in Detroit love his Lions.

So sharing NFL Draft experiences with him in Detroit, my second home, was important to me.

Like many, we took photos with the Lombardi Trophy. We saw busts of the Hall of Fame, the Heisman Trophy, the exhibit dedicated to Steelers founder Art Rooney, and the Walter Peyton NFL Man of the Year Award, given this year to Cam Heyward of the Steelers.

We cheered with the crowd during the sixth round of the draft and the 189th pick, by the Lions, at the draft theater. And I chanted, “Here We Go, Steelers, Here We Go” with a splash of Steeler fans (amid many boos) before the 195th draft pick, by Pittsburgh.

Strangers in a shuttle

On the ride back to the parking lot, my son noticed a man wearing a Steelers jersey get in, accompanied by a young girl, and sit in front of us on the other side of the aisle.

I asked if he was from the area. He said he was from outside Pittsburgh. Of course, I had to ask where, and that led to a little back-and-forth about small towns in the Keystone State that Michiganders have probably never heard of.

Then I learned that he and I graduated from the same high school, even though he was four years ahead of me, and that his father taught in the rival school district. He went to the same high school as me (and the other one in town too for a while).

He currently lives in the town where I ride the Pennsylvania Turnpike leaving my father’s house – he still lives in my hometown – to return to Detroit.

We talked some more in the parking lot. About the fact that the daughter, who looks a little younger than my son, is a big sports fan. How we think the Steelers made good draft picks this year. How we both hope Pittsburgh is selected to host the draft in 2026. And how, if anyone can rival Detroit’s participation, it might be the ‘Burgh,’ where Steeler Nation and its Terrible fan base Towel are vast.

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He praised Detroit; the people and the wonderful family experience they both had. I told him that the city had changed a lot in the nearly quarter century that I had lived in the area, enormous progress in terms of downtown and neighborhood improvements.

We shook hands before parting. I asked him his name. I told him mine.

Mom, I heard you

I sat in my car, stunned, replaying what had just happened. What were the chances that a guy from my high school in another state would be on our shuttle during the draft in Detroit, five and a half hours from my hometown?

Later, when I thought about it more, I realized that it was fate.

I believe my mother had something to do with this chance encounter. For me, there is no other explanation.

I felt a connection to my hometown, to my family – and to her. And to the snapshots of time buried in my memories.

Times when we watched football or talked about the games on the phone. Conversations I wish I could have had today.

Before writing this, I went to classmates.com to see if I could find this guy. Just to be sure. As a journalist, I check everything.

Indeed, he was a senior in the class of 1988. He looks practically the same. And here’s a fun fact: he was in the marching band, and during his senior year he was named one of the two most musical (instrumental) seniors by his classmates. Four years later, I was in the marching band; and I was named one of the two most musical (instrumental) by my classmates during my senior year. Who would have believed it ?

Sometimes life smiles on you.

Detroit, you did well for the NFL draft. As many have said on social media: you understand the mission.

Mom, apparently, you too.

Contact Christina Hall: [email protected]. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @challreporter. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters and we may publish it online or in print.