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Fernando Mendoza shared the moment of being selected first overall in the NFL draft with his family from home Thursday night.
He was seen hugging his family, including his mother Elsa Mendoza, during a moment of celebration.
Despite being projected as the No. 1 overall pick, Mendoza skipped the in-person draft in Pittsburgh to stay in Florida with his mother, who is battling multiple sclerosis (MS) and is wheelchair bound.
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Indiana Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza gestures after the CFP National Championship game against the Miami Hurricanes at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida on January 19, 2026. (Kirby Lee/Imagn Images)
When Mendoza was only about 4 years old, his mother was diagnosed with the illness. It is a chronic autoimmune disease of the central nervous system that can affect the brain and spinal cord. She has spent the 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. You and Alberto were so young, and I was fine… and most importantly, I didn’t want you to worry. It was just impossible to put on you guys. On my sweet boys. And then I continued to do well until about 10 years ago when we went skiing and I broke my ankle and knee,” she wrote.
“But even after that, I wasn’t quite ready to tell you – only that my leg hadn’t fully healed, which is why your mother was limping. It wasn’t until five years ago, when I contracted Covid, that things started to deteriorate to the point where there was no hiding it. It was during football season and I realized I wasn’t going to be able to travel. And the idea that you ask if I was less supportive of you, because suddenly I wasn’t in your shoes anymore? I hated it. So that’s when I knew we had to sit you and your brother down.
INDIANA FOOTBALL STAR AND HIS BROTHER TURN THEIR BURGER MAN INTO BATTLE AGAINST MS
Fernando Mendoza of the Indiana Hoosiers celebrates after defeating the Miami Hurricanes 27-21 in the 2026 College Football Playoff National Championship at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida on January 19, 2026. (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
She then recalled, “how difficult this conversation was. ‘Your mother has this degenerative disease…and while we don’t know how it will progress, it will start to affect us in many ways. But it won’t affect us in the ways that matter. We will love each other and be there for each other. I promise.'”
Both of Mednzoa’s parents grew up in Miami, Florida, as 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 World Junior Championships.
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Fernando Mendoza of the Indiana Hoosiers celebrates after defeating the Miami Hurricanes 27-21 in the 2026 College Football Playoff National Championship at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida on January 19, 2026. (Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
But Mendoza’s father also played soccer when he was younger and was teammates with Miami Hurricanes head coach Mario Cristobal at Christopher Columbus High School in the 1980s. Mendoza would defeat his father’s former teammate in that year’s CFP national championship game.
During this time, his mother played tennis at the University of Miami.
