No 1 NFL Draft pick Fernando Mendoza celebrates with family at home
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Fernando Mendoza shared the moment he was selected first overall in the NFL Draft on Thursday night from home with his family.
He was seen embracing his family, including his mother Elsa Mendoza, in a moment of celebration.
Despite being projected as the first overall pick, Mendoza skipped the in-person draft in pittsburgh She will remain in Florida with her mother, who struggles with multiple sclerosis (MS) and is confined to a wheelchair.
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Indiana Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza gestures after the CFP National Championship game against the Miami Hurricanes at Hard Rock Stadium on January 19, 2026 in Miami Gardens, Florida. (Kirby Lee/Imagn Images)
When Mendoza was only 4 years old, his mother was diagnosed with the disease. It is a chronic, autoimmune disease of the central nervous system that can affect the brain and spinal cord. He spent his last few years in a wheelchair.
Elsa Mendoza wrote about the experience in a 2015 letter to her sons published in The Players Tribune.
“I was diagnosed about 18 years ago, but of course you never knew it. You and Alberto were very young and I was fine… and mostly I didn’t want you to worry. This seemed like an impossible thing to put on you, my sweet boys. And then I was doing just fine until I broke my ankle and knee when we went skiing about 10 years ago,” she wrote.
“But even after that, I wasn’t quite ready to tell you – it’s just that my leg wasn’t fully healed, which is why your mother was limping. Five years ago, when I caught Covid, things were starting to get too bad to hide anymore. It was football season, and I realized I couldn’t travel. And the thought of you suddenly wondering if I was less supportive of you because I wasn’t at your games? I hated that. That’s when I realized we had to get you and your brother to the table.”
INDIANA FOOTBALL STAR AND HIS BROTHER TURN HIS NAME BURGER INTO THE BATTLE AGAINST MS
Fernando Mendoza of the Indiana Hoosiers celebrates defeating the Miami Hurricanes 27-21 in the 2026 College Football Playoff National Championship at Hard Rock Stadium on January 19, 2026 in Miami Gardens, Florida. (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
He continued: “What a difficult conversation it was in the end. ‘Your mother has a degenerative disease… and although we don’t know how it will progress, it will start to affect us in a number of ways. But it won’t affect us in major ways. We will have each other, we will love each other, and we will be there for each other. I promise.'”
Both of Mednzoa’s parents grew up in Miami, Florida, the children of Cuban refugees who fled communism after Fidel Castro came to power in the country.
Mendoza’s father, Fernando Mendoza Sr., was a rower at Brown University and a gold medalist at the 1987 Junior World Championships.
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Fernando Mendoza of the Indiana Hoosiers celebrates defeating the Miami Hurricanes 27-21 in the 2026 College Football Playoff National Championship at Hard Rock Stadium on January 19, 2026 in Miami Gardens, Florida. (Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
However, Mendoza’s father also played football when he was a kid and was his teammate. Miami Hurricanes Mario Cristobal, head coach at Christopher Columbus High School in the 1980s. Mendoza would go on to beat his father’s former teammate in this year’s CFP national championship game.
Meanwhile, her mother was playing tennis at the University of Miami.
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