Last season, when Patrick Mahomes II assumed the starting quarterback duties for the Kansas City Chiefs, the entire football world was curious about the new pigskin passer that was tearing up the league and sh*tting on the record books.
Just over a year later, Mahomes is on top of the NFL world, with a regular-season MVP (2019) to his credit and after Sunday Night’s 31-20 win over the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LIV, a Super Bowl MVP trophy to add to the mantle.
Mahomes’ athletic prowess didn’t come out of the blue. The two-sport athlete, who was also drafted in 2014 by the Detroit Tigers to play baseball, was destined to be a better athlete than his dad Pat, a former MLB pitcher who schooled him on the value of athletics and the game of life at a very young age.
The Super Bowl win brings us great pleasure, Mahomes Sr. told The Shadow League in an interview on Monday morning. Knowing all of the hard work is paying off and hopefully, there’s more great things to come.
The last time I spoke to Pat Sr., his words didn’t hold as much cache with the world. Young Patrick hadn’t led the Chiefs to a chip yet. With his 286 passing yards, 2 passing TDs, and 1 rushing score, Mahomes helped Kansas City break the second-longest streak between Super Bowl wins by a franchise in NFL history (49 years).
Now, turning back the clock on that interview with his Dad seems highly appropriate as Mahomes has become the second youngest QB to win a Super Bowl behind Ben Roethlisberger and just the third Black QB to do it, joining Doug Williams and Russell Wilson.
As a Dad, I feel gratitude that all the things I thought I saw were real, an overjoyed Mahomes Sr. added. Just very proud of the man he has become and the way he carries himself.
Pat offers a first-person account of his life, how he’s inspiring black pitching prospects through MLB’s youth diversity programs and how his son, the NFL’s new QB phenom, ended up on the gridiron rather than the diamond after growing up in MLB clubhouses and shagging fly balls from the likes of Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez.
By Pat Mahomes
Patrick chose football as his final destination, while I chose pro baseball, but both journeys were inspired by supportive fathers and an early burning passion for athletics.
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Pat Mahomes makes his first entrance at Arrowhead as the starter for the @Chiefs https://t.co/qI3w2JzpJP
I kind of bumped into baseball. I was supposed to get drafted as an outfielder out of Lindale High School in Texas, where I played varsity baseball, basketball, and football. The MLB scouts would come and watch me play. One day, one of the pitchers on the team got hurt and the coach brought me in to pitch. I was throwing 91-92 miles per hour at the time and I pitched well.
Once they saw that I had a live arm, the scouts would come to the game and have me pitch a bullpen session on the side, but they were still more interested in me being a hitter. The Minnesota Twins — who I never spoke to during the draft process — selected me in the sixth round of the 1988 MLB Draft as a pitcher. Once I signed to play pro ball I was determined to give pitching everything I had.
Pat was an MLB journeyman from 1992 to 2003, playing for several squads, including the Boston Red Sox, New York Mets, Texas Rangers, Chicago Cubs, and Pittsburgh Pirates. He also pitched in Japan for two seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball in 1997 and 1998 for the Yokohama BayStars.
1999 NLCS Gm5: Mahomes strikes out Hernandez in 8th
10/17/99: Mets reliever Pat Mahomes strikes out Jose Hernandez for the second out in the top of the 8th inning Check out http://MLB.com/video for more! About MLB.com: Former Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig announced on January 19, 2000, that the 30 Major League Club owners voted unanimously to centralize all of Baseball’s Internet operations into an independent technology company.
A love of baseball was passed down through generations. I learned the game from my father who played semi-pro baseball. He started me playing when I was four years old and I always excelled at it. That was the game that I was most comfortable with. I actually signed a scholarship to play basketball at Arkansas, but once I got drafted I decided to go to the Twins and went from there.
I compiled a winning 42-39 record with 450 Ks in my MLB career. The 1999 season was my best and my most memorable one. I went 8-0, undefeated for the season on a New York Mets team that should have won the World Series, but ended up losing in the NLCS. It’s probably the best team I’ve ever been to.
Going to the World Series in 2000 and playing in a Subway Series against the Yankees is up there as well. I developed many relationships and was able to live out a dream and lay the foundation for my son Patrick’s success. Everyone needs a good mentor.
Probably the most influential person that I met in my career was Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett, when I first went to the Twins. He was the guy who really taught me about work ethic and how to be a professional, traits that I passed along to my son.
1999 NLCS Gm5: Mahomes escapes trouble in the 7th
10/17/99: Mets reliever Pat Mahomes forces Andruw Jones to pop out to escape a bases-loaded jam in the top of the 7th inning Check out http://MLB.com/video for more! About MLB.com: Former Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig announced on January 19, 2000, that the 30 Major League Club owners voted unanimously to centralize all of Baseball’s Internet operations into an independent technology company.
I started taking Patrick to the ball field when he was four years old and dressing him out and letting him shag balls and be around the guys in the clubhouse. He was a sponge. He just picked up on all the little things they did and how hard they worked.
He was able to be with A-Rod and meet Derek Jeter and be around guys of that nature who were on top of the game and he saw how hard they worked and it was just something that always stuck with him. Being around those guys helped him when he decided to make football a career.
The Texas Gunslinger || Texas Tech QB Patrick Mahomes 2016 Highlights
Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scotttakade/ ( click show more ) Follow me on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ScottTakade JBP on IG: https://www.instagram.com/justbombsproductions/ Texas Tech QB Patrick Mahomes Junior 6’3 215 lbs Check out my backup channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT48sLMEjRc40Ts-cm70E3w Intro song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k1FRzJn5VI (All rights go to Texas Tech University, ESPN, xosdigitalsports, Texas Tech Athletics, Big 12 Digital Network, Big12Conference, Universal Music Group, the NCAA & it’s broadcasters.
He learned how hard you have to work to be at that level and he’s never turned back. He puts in the hours of work off the field, he’s what they call a gym rat. Always studying film and trying to figure out ways to get better and that transfers well to the NFL because you have so much studying and preparation you have to do each week before each game.
Combining a disciplined intellectual approach to the game with his freakish athletic skills is the key to Patrick’s seamless transition to the NFL game and why the second-year signal-caller out of Texas Tech won a Super Bowl in his second season as a starter.
He was a 4.0 student in college, he was gonna graduate by the end of his junior year. He’s always been studious. He has a photographic memory so things always come easy for him. His recall is second to none. I also feel that the idea of him playing multiple sports when he was younger really helped. If you watch him play, his baseball background has a lot to do with how he throws passes.
Pat Mahones: Chiefs perfect fit for son
Former major league pitcher Pat Mahomes, the father of Chiefs first-round pick Patrick Mahomes II, believes his son landed in the perfect place to develop. Mahomes also talked about his experience playing in the Royals system and at Kauffman Stadium.
He throws passes sidearm and no-look and that’s all stuff he learned from playing shortstop in baseball. So he’s taken a little bit of that and added it to other parts of his football game and it’s not something that a lot of people have seen before. It’s going well right now, but the objective is to keep learning and keep doing great things out on the football field.
Mahomes’ unique style of play has set the NFL ablaze. Football provided Mahomes the athletic platform to become a superstar, but It was baseball that sparked Patrick’s love of sports, his competitive edge and continues to provide him with advantages on the football field that other players don’t have.
A-Rod was a huge influence on Patrick and a guy who really spent a lot of time with him. Other than myself, another big influence was former MLB pitcher Latroy Hawkins, whos also his godfather. He really taught him a lot of stuff, showed him how to be professional.
The first time he was out on the baseball field you could tell he was the best player out there even though he was the youngest player out there. He was catching balls off big-league bats, shagging balls in the outfield when he was five years old. He was a little more advanced than the other kids.
PATRICK MAHOMES PROSPECT VIDEO, WHITEHOUSE HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 2015 @ACBASEBALLGAMES #MLBDRAFT
PATRICK MAHOMES FIELDING, BP AND GAME AT BATS AT THE AREA CODE GAMES
Everybody thought he was gonna play baseball and get drafted in the first round as an outfielder. In addition to his batting skills, he threw 95 miles per hour off the mound. But his junior year, he got a chance to play quarterback for Whitehouse High School in Texas, where Patrick was a three-sport athlete, just like me. You know how contagious and crazy Texas football is.
He had 4,619 passing yards, 50 passing touchdowns, about 1,000 yards rushing and 15 touchdowns as a senior and his baseball career was pretty much over. He was too a point where I think he felt like he had learned everything he could about baseball and football offered him some new learning things, really intrigued him and he fell in love with it.
Patrick Mahomes High School Highlights
High school football highlights of Texas Tech’s Patrick Mahomes. Subscribe to the MaxPreps Channel HERE: http://t.maxpreps.com/2hXSt37 Watch Entertaining Highlights on MaxPreps HERE: http://t.maxpreps.com/1w08iEq Follow MaxPreps on Twitter HERE: http://t.maxpreps.com/2c3Q2c8 Like MaxPreps on Facebook HERE: http://t.maxpreps.com/2hXU091 Follow MaxPreps on Instagram HERE: http://t.maxpreps.com/2hXMye6 Get the MaxPreps app for iPhone & iPad!
The positions of quarterback and pitcher mirror each other in many ways, particularly in racial composition and prestige. MLB pitchers and the quarterback position have always been coveted leadership positions on the field where people of color are often underrepresented.
Patrick is one of a handful of African-American quarterbacks in a league that has just four coaches of color and is still blackballing Colin Kaepernick for protesting racial and social injustice. His dad pitched in a league that didn’t even have 20 Black pitchers on MLB rosters.
This lack of representation is a major reason why Pat Mahomes Sr. shares his Big League experience with MLB’s diversity initiatives. This summer he was an instructor at MLB’s Hank Aaron Invitational camp in Vero Beach, dropping the same knowledge he shared with Patrick long ago, with talented players of color ages 12-18, many from underserved areas.
I think we’re making great strides with developing pitchers and players of color. One of the most important things to me is giving back, and being a pro pitcher, I know how hard it is to get to that point.
As far as the pitching situation, most guys of color are very athletic and they see that and the speed and all the different skills we have and they want to transfer us to other positions. So a lot of guys that are playing centerfield, left field, and shortstop could be pitchers but they feel like they can get more out of them as position players.
Making adjustments and following your heart has worked out well for the Mahomes family, who has incorporated those values into a common theme that has brought their family athletic success and good fortune.
I always tell [Patrick Jr.] before every game how proud I am of him and remind him of what my dad Johnny Mahomes used to tell me: Youll always be successful if you perform to the limits of your ability
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Pat Mahomes throws a TD Pass. In other news, water is wet. #SFvsKC https://t.co/u2xDPDoVcD
Pats at the top of the world right now, but it’s going to be a fight for him to stay there. If he tries the best he can that’s all you can ask for. The players make plays… that’s the code we live by. If he goes out and makes plays hopefully the outcome turns out the way he wants to.
With a supportive father like Pat Mahomes Sr., it’s no surprise that his son represents the evolution of the NFL’s next generation of great quarterbacks, in this “Year of the Black Quarterback.” That excellence is a byproduct of a strong father-son bond.
