How Football Coach Sherman Smith Became the Biological Father His Player Deland McCullough Never Knew He Had
When Deland McCullough, a man who built his life around football, sat down across from Sherman Smith a couple of years ago, he thought he was talking to a lifelong mentor. What he discovered instead was that the man who had coached him, supported him and treated him like a son for decades was his biological father. It sounds like the kind of plot Hollywood would spin, but for them — this is real life.
Deland was adopted at birth and raised in Youngstown, Ohio, by a single mother. He grew up carrying dreams of football glory and a quiet question in the back of his mind: Who am I, really, and where did I come from? He found in Coach Smith a guiding light: recruiting him to college, mentoring him through setbacks, shaping him into a person beyond just an athlete. Smith always said to his players, “You may not be looking for a father, but I’m going to treat you like my son.”
Years into that relationship the discovery came. In 2017 Deland began searching for his biological parents. His birth mother, less than ten minutes away in Ohio, told him the name of his father: Sherman Smith. For Smith, this revelation shook the ground. He learned that the young man he had coached, called “son” by many but not by blood, was in fact his child. When the paternity test came back it showed a 99.99% chance Smith was the father.
Imagine the scene: so many years of speeches, sideline talks, locker-room pep talks, and a coach trying to fill a role in young men’s lives. All the while the mentor was already father. The son didn’t know it yet. And when he learned the truth, instead of feeling betrayed or angry, he found relief, gratitude, and connection. He told interviewers he recognized the parallels: the way they walked, how they talked, the life path that looked so similar. “Wow, that explains these things,” he said.
This story isn’t just about football. It’s about identity, belonging and the meaning of fatherhood. Deland had a dad in his life before he knew it. But until the truth came, there was a missing piece. For Smith, the moment when Deland stood on his porch and Smith greeted him with open arms and said “my son” for the first time — that was a turning point. A word he’d never been called by the man across from him for decades.
In the years since, they’ve built a relationship beyond coach and player. They share dinners, family gatherings, talk about legacy and love, about mistakes and redemptions. They’ve even been featured in film — their story is told in the documentary Show Me the Father. Deland stayed in coaching, rising to the NFL, and Smith watched his “son” stand where he once stood. Their parallel journeys in football brought them to similar milestones, but now with a shared name, if not shared childhood.
What I love most about this tale is how it turns the usual story of absence into something healing. A boy who longed for a father. A coach who wanted to be a father figure. A man who finally became the father he didn’t know he had. There are no villains here. There’s no bitterness. Just two men realizing their connection, recognizing that perhaps fate had woven this story all along.
Their story makes me hope for the same things we all want: to be seen, to be known, to belong. It reminds me how mentorship can shape lives but also how the deeper bonds we seek might already be standing beside us, perhaps hidden in plain sight. It tells me that family isn’t only the people you expect, but sometimes the people you discover.
If you ever wonder about the weight of words like “dad” or “son,” or what it means to find your place in someone else’s heart, look at Deland and Sherman. This is a coach-turned-father story, a former athlete’s search for roots, and a reunion of two life paths that were always meant to merge.
And to me, it’s a quiet miracle: the day a player realized he never stood alone, the day a coach realized he’d already been given the son he didn’t know he was missing — until now.
