Shortly before his fourth and most unusual NFL training camp, back in August 2020, Patrick Mahomes invited his closest friends and family members to his Texas-sized, Dallas–Fort Worth–area mansion for a socially distant pool party/barbecue. He knew he wouldn’t visit with most of them in person again until after the season ended. Understanding the collective and personal sacrifices ahead, he left his own party for much of the afternoon to go see his paternal grandparents, who couldn’t be at the gathering. He planned all this to eliminate any lingering obligations. After all, he had another Super Bowl to win.
The quarterback’s private chef laid out a proper brunch spread, featuring fruit and pastries and made-to-order omelets. Everyone jumped in the pool, swimming and lounging and dividing into volleyball teams, until the party’s host returned. Then the chef grilled cheeseburgers. Mahomes doused his in ketchup, proving at once how much had changed (look who did the grilling) and how much had not (the menu, along with the condiment he could eat by itself).
As Mahomes continued his professional evolution, from starter to league MVP to international fame, analysts focused on the numbers and accomplishments. They didn’t know that many of his most important transformations in the most transformative year of his life would take place away from the field.
His mother, Randi, did what mothers do. She worried. About his future, the pandemic, the title-or-bust expectations, a season that promised mostly virtual contact and, always, the menacing defenders in rabid pursuit. But on that day, before the season started, she scoured her son’s pantry and noticed something that soothed her anxiety: stacks of Cool Ranch Doritos, her son’s favorite food. She most wanted Patrick to retain himself in this new vacuum of private-chef celebrity, to change less than everything—and everyone—around him, despite the microscope he lives under and the millions in the bank. “You look at all the changes, whether it’s how big he is or this mustache he has right now that’s driving me bananas, but he’s still the same,” she said then. Right down to his snacks.
Mother and son, Team Mahomes and Chiefs Kingdom and a nation of football obsessives all understood the stakes. Mahomes had set them himself, after an AFC championship game triumph the previous season over Tennessee. Onstage, with safety Tyrann Mathieu and tight end Travis Kelce, the quarterback said things like, “Let’s start a dynasty.”
“Obviously big words,” he said in the lead-up to Super Bowl LV two seasons ago. “But you believe them.”
He believed them so much, in fact, that when his mother reminded him of one of her favorite sayings from his childhood, how whenever she needed him to do something or go somewhere, she would say, “I don’t care if it’s the Super Bowl …, ” and he would comply with rolling eyes. Randi told Patrick that because she wanted him to savor his first experience, in Super Bowl LIV, to realize that some players reach the NFL pinnacle, never to return. Patrick didn’t roll his eyes this time.
“It’s not once in a lifetime, Mom,” he said. “We’ll be back.”
Indeed, Mahomes led his Chiefs to their second Super Bowl title in four years, winning MVP after throwing for three touchdowns in a 38–35 victory over the Eagles Sunday night at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.
