Culture
Four women runners brutally killed in Kenya: ‘It’s no longer safe for any athlete’
Rebecca Cheptegei loved chickens. She reared them and collected their eggs each morning. Her family would gently joke she loved them too much.
“She was always laughing,” says her mother, Agnes. “You always knew when she was home.”
Cheptegei had a chicken coop wherever she lived. Earlier this year, she built a house in the Kenyan village of Kinyoro, funded by her recent success — she won the World Mountain Running Championships in 2022, and finished second in last year’s Florence Marathon.
That championship feeling for Rebecca Cheptegei 🇺🇬🏆✨
She’s crowned queen of the Classic Up & Down at the #WMTRC in #AmazingThailand 👑
Silver 🥈 for Annet Chemengich Chelangat 🇺🇬, and bronze 🥉 for Allie McLaughlin 🇺🇸
📺 Coverage continues: https://t.co/avnwwjCLMO pic.twitter.com/DEmModzZtU
— wmtrc2021thailand (@wmtrc2021th) November 6, 2022
On the afternoon of September 1, while Cheptegei was at church, her estranged partner Dickson Ndiema Marangach lowered himself inside the coop, with its solid wooden walls. When she returned, she went outside to check on her flock, given the light drizzle.
As Cheptegei approached, Marangach burst out the coop and threw petrol in her eyes. While she stumbled, he used the jerry can to soak the rest of her body — and set her alight.
Her 17-year-old sister Dorcas ran out to help, clawing at Cheptegei’s black jacket, her finest church wear, but fled after being threatened by Marangach’s machete.
“I can’t forget it,” says Dorcas. “I keep dreaming of her calling for help.” Watching on inside were Cheptegei’s daughters from a previous marriage, 12-year-old Joy and Charity, nine.
Cheptegei’s sister, Dorcas, who tried to intervene (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
Cheptegei ran to the front lawn, but with Marangach trailing behind, no neighbours came to help. As she collapsed onto the grass, Marangach walked over, and emptied the rest of the petrol onto her. He seriously burnt himself in the process.
By the time help came, the only parts of Cheptegei which had not been covered with either second or third-degree burns were her forearms and shins.
“Mama, why was there no one there to save me?” she wept to her pastor, Caroline Atieno, in hospital that evening.
For the first 24 hours, Cheptegei was able to speak and describe the attack. Before being transferred to a larger hospital in the Kenyan city of Eldoret, she raised hopes of survival by pulling herself into a wheelchair. The next day, Atieno kept vigil at the nearby Mount Bethel, where the pair had prayed before the Olympics.
Cheptegei worsened over the coming days. Her tongue swelled, blocking her airways. One by one, her organs began to shut down.
“I went to see her in intensive care,” says Kenyan athlete Violah Lagat. “And I made a bad decision visiting that day, because it has never left me. I’ve been having nightmares about how she looked. She went through all the struggles of life and made it. She was an Olympian. And it was taken from her.”
Running memorabilia on the walls of Cheptegei’s family home (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
While she could still speak, Cheptegei repeated two things in Swahili.
“Why couldn’t Dickson have seen one good thing in me, so he wouldn’t have done this?”
“Who will look after my children?”
She died four days after being attacked, aged 33.
The hospital announced that Marangach had died of his own burns on September 10.
(Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
On November 3, Kenyan athletes finished 1-2-3 in the New York City Marathon. The previous month, in Chicago, Ruth Chepngetich became the first woman to run under two hours and 10 minutes, obliterating the world record by nearly two minutes.
The majority of Kenyan runners train in the town of Iten, near Eldoret. It lies above the Great Rift Valley on an escarpment a mile and a half high, the thin air and web of trails producing a regular stream of Olympic medallists. In Kenya, it has been named “the home of champions”. In recent years, it has become known for something else.
Cheptegei’s family have hung a banner on their living room wall. It reads “Fighting for Victims of Femicide” and lists four names.
Rebecca Cheptegei. Though she was born in and competed for Uganda, she had lived in Kenya since the age of two.
Cheptegei leads the women’s marathon at the 2023 World Athletics Championship in Budapest, Hungary (Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)
Damaris Muthee Mutua — strangled in Iten in April 2022. Born in Kenya, she represented Bahrain internationally. The police named her boyfriend Eskinder Folie as the chief suspect but he fled across the border to his native Ethiopia and attempts to capture him have been unsuccessful.
Edith Muthoni — murdered in October 2021. The 27-year-old sprinter also worked as a wildlife protection officer. Her husband was charged in relation to her death in 2022 and the case is ongoing.
Agnes Tirop — stabbed to death in the same week as Muthoni, a month after breaking the 10,000m world record in Germany. Her husband and coach, Ibrahim Rotich, confessed to beating her in a heated argument and then pleaded not guilty to her murder. This case is also ongoing.
“She was a pure talent,” says Janeth Jepkosgei, a former 800m world champion and Olympic silver medallist, of Tirop. “She could have been an Olympic champion. She could have done great things in the marathon.”
Though the legal process is at a different stage in all four cases, there is an apparent pattern: each woman athlete was killed after a financial dispute involving their partner. Speaking to athletes around Iten, everyone worries that they will not be the last.
Former world champion Janeth Jepkosgei (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
Jepkosgei is now one of Kenya’s best coaches, working predominantly with junior athletes, and witnesses the issues daily.
“We don’t want to bury more ladies, but the same things keep happening,” she says. “It’s no longer safe for any athlete, actually, especially when they’re starting a relationship. We feel scared as women.”
She is alluding to a system of control that is well-known throughout Kenyan running.
“There are these guys who go hunting for these girls who are talented, and then they pretend to be coaches,” explains Lagat, whose brother, Bernard, won two world championship gold medals competing for the USA.
Kenyan 1500m runner Violah Lagat (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
“Ninety per cent of the time, us athletes come from very vulnerable backgrounds. Our parents don’t have enough money or enough food, they aren’t able to provide sanitary towels for the girls. Those men will initially provide that.”
Athletics in Kenya is a route out of poverty. The New York City Marathon prize money is $100,000, fifteen times a Kenyan’s average annual salary, but even performing well in local races can provide a comfortable lifestyle. Around 30 female runners earn more than $100,000 each year, in a nation where one-third of the population live below the poverty line. With the majority of athletes from poorer, rural backgrounds, they invariably will have never handled such large sums of money.
“In many cases, these men are gradually grooming or manipulating someone to put all their trust in them,” adds Lagat. “Then the control takes place — how they’re training, who they’re seeing, what they do with their earnings.”
“I call them vultures,” says Wesley Korir, winner of the 2012 Boston Marathon, and later a politician. “They look at them (women athletes) as an investment. The relationship is not out of love, these girls feel stuck, they’re trying to survive. For me, I feel like it’s slavery.”
When The Athletic visited Iten, many athletes — some speaking anonymously owing to fear of repercussions — reported further examples of gender-based violence, including domestic abuse, sexual assault, abduction, and feeling pressure to take performance-enhancing drugs. The response of authorities has also been questioned.
An advertisment for Tirop’s Angels, near Agnes Tirop’s home (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
Lagat has trained in Iten for most of her adult life, and had grown close to Tirop, six years her junior. After her friend’s death, she resolved to bring change.
“The violence has gone from our grandmothers to our mothers,” she explains. “Agnes was younger than me. If we didn’t take a step, it’ll go all the way to our grandchildren as well.”
She co-founded Tirop’s Angels alongside fellow athlete Joan Chelimo, a domestic abuse charity run by current athletes which provides counselling and safe havens, as well as advice for athletes who suspect they are being exploited.
According to the charity, three-quarters of the women they support have contemplated suicide because of their situation.
Kenyan runners typically come from rural communities in the Great Rift Valley (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
On the day we meet, Lagat needs to leave early, rushed out to an emergency call of an athlete in distress. In recent months, the charity experienced a man trying to climb over an electric fence to reach one of the athletes they were harbouring. It was not out of the ordinary.
To get to Cheptegei’s family home, you take the highway from Eldoret, in Kenya’s far west, towards the gateway town of Kitale. It is near the Ugandan border, over which her parents fled ethnic violence in the early 1990s. From Kitale, it is a smaller road to the tiny village of Endebess, before a three-mile climb up a packed dirt trail into the shadows of Mount Elgon.
These roads are good for training — soft for the knees, undulating for the legs and high for the lungs. Cheptegei’s brother Jacob — an 18-year-old with a 5,000m personal best of 14 minutes flat, faster than this year’s world-leading junior time — leads the way.
Jacob Cheptegei on the family’s two acres of land (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
Joy and Charity live with the family now, joining Cheptegei’s parents and siblings across four adobe huts and two acres of land, on which they grow cabbages, plantain, and yams.
“Once we were 13, but now we are 12,” says Cheptegei’s father, Joseph. “She (Rebecca) dreamed of buying us another two acres, of building a permanent home. But that has disappeared.”
Cheptegei was spotted as a talented runner at seven. She opted to represent Uganda after missing out on a Kenya junior camp, and was supported in her training by the country’s army. After a short period in Uganda, she moved back to Kenya for the superior training facilities. There, she met Marangach.
Rain envelops the Cheptegei compound (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
“Dickson wasn’t a talented athlete,” says her close friend Emmanuel Kimutai. “He was a boda-boda man (a motorcycle taxi driver), but pretended to be a coach. He was looking for an opportunity.
“He started by escorting the runners with his motorcycle, carrying drinks, but when he realised Rebecca wasn’t in a relationship, he took advantage. He told Rebecca a lot of lies, but I think she wanted companionship. We eventually found out he was with three ladies at the time.”
The issues began when Cheptegei decided to buy her own motorcycle to take Joy and Charity to school. According to the family, Marangach said he would arrange it — and paid for it with Cheptegei’s money — but registered the bike in his name. When Cheptegei complained, Marangach threatened her.
“He keep repeating the same warnings to Rebecca,” says Agnes. “He said he’d maim her ears, maim her nose, maim her genitals.”
On one occasion, Jacob borrowed the motorbike, with his sister’s permission, for a race in Uganda. He says he was chased down by Marangach and three of his friends and had to flee, hiding in a eucalyptus tree to avoid being beaten. Marangach then reported him to the police.
Agnes and Joseph Cheptegei (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
All the while, Cheptegei was winning money from races — more than $50,000 each year.
“Dickson would see the money coming into the bank account, and he had a PIN code,” says Joseph. “He’d spend it how he wanted. Rebecca was uncomfortable with that, and so in April (2024) she went to the bank to change the number.
“After realising Rebecca had done this, Dickson came home in a fury with a machete. Her phone was charging, and he slashed at it with a machete. She ran away from the house in Kinyoro and reported it to the police.”
They say another unprovoked attack took place soon after, when he knocked her out with a punch to her cheek.
“Dickson would tell her she couldn’t go anywhere to get justice, because he said a police officer in Kinyoro was family,” Joseph adds. “He said he would only lose a little, but if Rebecca complained, she would lose everything she has.”
Cheptegei pictured in front of her house, alongside the television on which her family watched her in the Olympics (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
Her most important asset was the house in Kinyoro, built strategically between her parents and the training bases of Iten and Eldoret. Joseph points to a framed photo on the wall, of Rebecca standing proudly in front of her new home.
“You see this house? This is why Rebecca was killed,” he says.
By the spring, Cheptegei and Marangach had separated as a couple, yet he continued to insist the plot was in his name, bringing his new partner to the house and refusing to leave. The police detained him, but he was back within a month, this time attempting to change the locks.
“Rebecca couldn’t even take the kids to school that day,” says Joseph. “She called the police at Kinyoro again, but the officer said he was tired of all the complaints at this homestead, and that he didn’t want to hear any more of their domestic argument.”
When asked about the handling of Cheptegei’s case, Jeremiah ole Kosiom, county commander of Trans Nzoia police, said in a phone call: “As a senior officer, no reports reached me from my juniors. The investigation is ongoing.”
This was just before the Olympics, at which Cheptegei finished 44th in the marathon.
“She wasn’t sleeping at home,” says Agnes. “She was fearful for her life. She couldn’t perform because she was so worried about Dickson.”
Cheptegei managed to get the case into the justice system, with the aim of ultimately settling the ownership question. According to her family, the weekend she was attacked, Marangach was unsuccessfully chasing signatures for his own documentation. He then went to a small filling station in Endebess, and bought petrol.
Cheptegei is laid to rest in Bukwo, eastern Uganda, in September (Adreena Nakasujja/Xinhua via Getty Images)
Before her relationship with Marangach, Cheptegei had been briefly married in Uganda to Joy and Charity’s father.
After her death, Joseph reconnected with his daughter’s ex-husband to enquire whether his grandchildren could benefit from land in Uganda she had bought them. He was told that it had already been sold.
Back in Iten, others followed what had happened in Kinyoro in horror. They had been here before.
“When Rebecca Cheptegei died in the same way as Agnes, I was in so much pain,” says Martin Tirop, Agnes’s brother. “I wanted to go and view her body when she was pronounced dead. But when I woke up in the morning, I didn’t have my courage anymore. I was traumatised from what came before.”
Just one month before she died, Tirop had broken the 10,000m world record in the small Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach. When she returned from Germany, she was killed.
Tirop celebrates breaking the world record in Germany in September 2021 (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images for Adidas)
Martin still lives in the compound in Iten which Tirop built with her winnings. As one of Kenya’s most successful female athletes, she typically earned more than $100,000 each year. Sitting in the dimly-lit living room, he points to a door.
“That’s where we found her,” he says.
That morning, October 13, no one had heard from Tirop for 24 hours. After police sawed through the compound gates, Martin was boosted on a family member’s shoulders, allowing him peer into a locked bedroom. There, he saw his sister’s dead body, lying in the doorway in pool of blood.
Tirop’s husband, Rotich, was around 15 years her senior and worked as her coach despite a lack of formal qualifications. Rotich pleaded not guilty to her murder, claiming he was provoked. Pre-trial testimonies are being gathered at Eldoret’s High Court, ahead of a full trial next year.
Tirop’s brother, Martin, at her house in Iten (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
Tirop’s family outline how Rotich sought to cut off her support networks.
“Agnes just disappeared from school,” her father Vincent told the court. “Since she was 18 years old, the police said there was nothing they could do about it.”
Her sister Eve testified in court that she had seen Tirop being beaten and crying on the floor. On her return from the Tokyo Olympics in August, it was said Agnes was so afraid she went to stay with her mother, though eventually moved back in with Rotich in Iten.
Martin looks at his sister’s trophies on the walls of their home (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
Early on October 12, Tirop’s sister, who lived nearby, told the court she heard screaming and quarrelling at 5am. She said that Rotich gave her 1,000 Kenyan shillings ($7.70; £6.10) that morning to buy meat, insisting she left the house on the errand. When she returned, the gates were locked and she said her sister’s phone was off. Twenty-four hours later, and still without contact, police were summoned to break down the door.
An autopsy found Agnes had been stabbed four times in the neck and hit with a garden hoe. She was 25.
“The problems come when we trust too much in the wrong partner,” says marathon world-record holder Chepngetich. “When we’re tired, we can’t do everything by ourselves. We need help, and that’s when they take advantage — taking our properties, other things as well. And maybe then there can be violence.”
Kenya’s best runners are predominantly Kalenjin, the nation’s third-largest tribe. Traditionally, they are taught that the man is the head of the household — which is why many purchase properties in the man’s name, even if it is funded with the woman athlete’s money.
“You know, most of those female athletes who make it, actually own nothing,” says Tirop’s brother Martin. “Everything is in their husband’s name. There is nothing on record and they need to be protected.”
“My husband has taken firm control of my two petrol stations and proceeds from agricultural land, and I can’t earn from them,” Vivian Cheruiyot, a 5000m gold medallist at the 2016 Olympics, told Kenyan newspaper The Standard last year. “I don’t even know where the title deeds are. I want my property to be safe for the future of my children.” Her husband denies the allegations.
“Men need to learn they are supposed to be the one contributing, rather than using the female to succeed,” says Mary Keitany, a three-time winner of both the New York and London marathons. According to the Gates Foundation, across Kenya, women in rural communities do 50 per cent more labour, but make 80 per cent less income.
According to government research from 2022, around 40 per cent of Kenyan women aged between 15 and 39 have suffered physical abuse in their lifetime.
Chelimo Saina runs a domestic abuse support group through her and her husband’s charity, Shoe4Africa, and still competes for Kenya in masters athletics. A Kalenjin, she points to parts of her tribe’s culture as a factor.
“For men, circumcision at 15 to 17 is a big rite of passage,” she explains. “They’re expected to show no pain. But in the more traditional ceremonies, when they’re taught how to treat a woman, they’re told that occasionally beating a woman is OK. There are the same attitudes in wedding songs. Us women are taught to persevere.”
Chelimo Saina won 200m gold in the 2023 African Masters Championship (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
The abuse can also be sexual. In 2019, a government survey reported that one in six Kenyan women had experienced sexual violence before they turned 18.
“There are so many cases with the girls,” says Jepkosgei. “I deal mostly with Under-20 athletes, and whenever we tour around the country, we realise so many things have happened. I’ve had to rescue girls from some regions. There are so many abortions being done.” Abortion is banned in Kenya unless it is a medical emergency or proved as a product of rape.
Selina Kogo, known affectionately by athletes as ‘Shosh’ (grandmother), works as Tirop’s Angels’ counsellor. Even after almost two decades in this space, some cases shock her — such as that involving a junior international medallist, aged 13 and her so-called coach.
“The problem came during massages,” she says. “He told her that sex is part of the massage, and because she was just an innocent little girl, she thought that if the boss said it was normal, it was normal. He was the one who sent money and sugar home. Within a year, she got pregnant, at the age of just 14 or 15.”
In Kenya, the age of consent is 18. Sex with a minor is considered “defilement” and, in this case, could have been punished by at least 20 years imprisonment if convicted. The assault was never reported.
Selina Kogo outside the Tirop’s Angels headquarters in Iten (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
“She couldn’t run and went home, and then the poverty started,” says Kogo. “But she decided to give running one more shot, with her mother looking after the baby.
“Then another coach came into her life making promises. He offered to help her move to Iten, he proposed to her. She got pregnant again. Within six months he disappeared. She’s still 17, too young to work, and is so demoralised she can’t run.”
Unregulated massage parlours like these are not uncommon in Iten.
“So many girls are sexually violated because they go for a massage before a race and say they have 300 shillings (a few dollars or pounds),” says Lagat. “Then they are told, ‘No, it is 500′ — but if you’re preparing for a race and this is your shot, you can avoid the extra 200 if you do something else.”
That ‘something else’ may also include doping. According to the World Anti-Doping Authority, 44 per cent of positive tests for EPO come from Kenya. With the high levels of coach-partner exploitation, desperate to maximise income, the incentive to gain an unfair advantage is obvious.
“I know two runners where their husbands were the ones helping them get the drugs,” says Saina. “It’s whatever makes them win. And of course, they’re using the athlete’s money to source this.”
Athletics Kenya president Jackson Tuwei acknowledges the likely connection.
“We have started an enhanced anti-doping programme, and want to register all our coaches so we know who is a real coach and who isn’t,” he told The Athletic. “One of the recommendations is to increase the number of female coaches, and that will also help address the gender violence issue.
“A well-trained coach would not do the things we’re hearing about — we want to eliminate those who aren’t.”
Athletics is big business in Kenya — and the question of who is responsible for what is happening to women athletes is a pertinent one.
“In the year she died, (Agnes) reported what happened to Athletics Kenya, but nobody helped her,” says Martin Tirop. “Athletics Kenya and the government raise so much money through athletics. They need to protect female athletes.”
Other athletes, remaining anonymous to protect their position within the team, criticised the body for failing to release a report they say was promised to them in the aftermath of Tirop’s murder, and have also questioned a male dominance on the executive committee (13 men and five women).
Jackson Tuwei, president of Athletics Kenya (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
Senior officials at Athletics Kenya have acknowledged that they needed to make significant changes to their protocols after her death, based on recommendations from World Athletics, the sport’s global governing body.
“(Gender-based violence) has continued to happen at a rate we cannot accept,” says Tuwei. “For this to happen, and to particularly happen to a top athlete, it’s very painful, and so we decided that we cannot accept this kind of thing. But we know it’s happened again and again thereafter.”
Athletics Kenya introduced several new policies this year, including a six-person panel — four women and two men — where gender-based violence and other safeguarding issues can be reported. A new office has opened in Eldoret, far closer to the athletes than Nairobi, which also offers support.
Others think some agents should be more aware of the difficulties faced by their athletes.
“In Kenya, we have the problem that there is no relationship with the athlete,” Korir says. “They see you as a money maker, not a person. As long as you are running well, they don’t care how you live.”
After Tirop’s death, the Athletics Integrity Unit — founded by World Athletics to address issues of ethical misconduct — contacted her agent, former Italian runner Gianni Demadonna. Court documents from last month show he was aware of some issues, with his assistant Joseph Chepteget testifying: “Gianni told me to calm to down her composure and mental situation because she was distracted as she was fighting with Ibrahim.”
Police sawed through the grill on the left to access Tirop’s home (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
Demadonna, contacted by Swedish Radio last year, defended himself by saying Tirop had asked him to stay out of her personal life.
Speaking to female athletes in Iten, many are also fearful that suspected abusers will not ever have to face justice.
Mutua’s alleged killer has still not been caught. Rotich is on bail — paying a bond of just 400,000 Kenyan shillings (around $3,000) for his freedom.
“Having been in custody for about two years, the accused ought now to be allowed his liberty,” wrote Justice Wananda Anuro in his bail judgement. Although he is barred from Iten, several athletes have expressed distress that Rotich is living in Eldoret.
The doorway of Tirop’s home, where her body was found (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
“And you know the money to pay for the lawyer?” says Jepkosgei. “That’ll be Agnes’ money.”
Policing standards have also been criticised.
“It’s not like Europe or North America,” says Lagat, describing her difficulty in finding safe houses for athletes at Tirop’s Angels. “The police officers in Iten, for someone in crisis, will say, ‘OK, can you come to the office’ or, ‘We don’t have fuel — can you pay for us to come?’
Benjamin Mwanthi, county commander of Uasin Gishu police (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
“I have to pay the police and the local chief to protect my women, or act aggressively with the perpetrator,” says Saina bluntly. “It’s going to happen again, because nothing is being done.”
A police spokesperson for Uasin Gishu County insisted all cases are investigated, but stated they often found that athletes did not follow up their complaints, and claimed many incidents are settled without needing police intervention.
Cheptegei’s family live in the neighbouring county of Trans-Nzoia. They point out that she was actively seeking police assistance, and say she reported Marangach on multiple occasions.
“Rebecca would not have died if the police acted,” Joseph says. “My daughter complained continuously. Nothing was done.”
Jeremiah ole Kosiom, county commander of Trans-Nzoia police, said in response: “The investigation is ongoing, led by the DCI (detective chief inspector), and if the family are not comfortable with the results of the investigation, they can appeal.”
“Komesha, komesha,” is the chant from over 200 athletes. “Enough is Enough.”
“You have to prove you’re the home of champions,” ends president Tuwei’s speech, to applause.
On November 9, two months after Cheptegei’s death, Athletics Kenya held a day of workshops focused on ending gender-based violence.
Athletics at a gender-based violence workshop in Iten (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
Staff pass out numbers of safeguarding officers, and define and explain grooming and psychological abuse. There are lessons on how to handle personal finances, highlighting the Matrimonial Property Act. Coaches were also given warnings — no underage female athletes were ever to be alone with a male trainer, and a no touching policy was now in place across the board.
“Be careful,” says Elizabeth Keitany, the body’s head of safeguarding, during one talk. “You don’t know if somebody is a monster or a human being.”
Other preventative initiatives have also been springing up. Tirop’s Angels and Shoe4Africa are both fundraising for safe houses, the latter to include a mushroom farm, run by its occupants, which it is hoped, will eventually pay for itself outside of donations. Korir runs a school predominantly for talented teenage athletes, Transcend Academy, which aims to remove the opportunity for predatory coaches.
“Before you start winning races, you’re struggling because you have to feed yourself, you have to look for shoes, it’s all on your own,” he explains. “I used to sleep outside, I used to dig latrines and septic tanks. But girls don’t have that luxury — we need to give them a place to develop independently with no strings attached, where opportunists can’t make false promises.”
Brother Colm O’Connell, a 78-year-old Irishman who moved to Iten in 1976, has become known as ‘the godfather of Kenyan running’ for his work with athletes including double Olympic and world champion David Rudisha, Jepkosgei, and Cheruiyot. He ensures a 50-50 split of boys and girls at St Patrick’s High School, Iten, insisting on the importance of mixed groups and mutual understanding.
Brother Colm O’Connell at his holiday training camp (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
“We need to be more proactive than reactive,” he says. “It’s how to interact and behave towards each other, and that starts from day one. Athletics Kenya can’t solve it on their own, Tirop’s Angels can’t stop it on their own. It has to be absolutely combined.
“We do have very solid relationships, we do have husbands supporting their talented wives in the athletics world. I want to spread the good news about Kenya. But the day you stop fighting against this situation is the day you’ve completely lost.”
Back at the Cheptegei’s home, the rain is threatening to block the roads and Jacob has training the next day; Thursday morning intervals, the toughest session of the week.
Rebecca recognised her brother’s talent and passed on tips.
“She’d always tell me I needed to eat after sessions or my body would get weak,” he says. “Ugali, eggs, chicken, of course, even chapati and tea.”
Cheptegei’s family at home near Endebess (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
Jacob dips his head, bashful.
“When it gets hard, I just remember her telling me push on, even when the body says it can’t,” he says.
The suffering is visible. Since the attack, Charity has been too traumatised to return to school, but will try again after the holidays. She whispers that she wants to be an English teacher when she grows up. Rebecca’s oldest daughter, 12-year-old Joy, is also talented and clearly a fast runner.
From left; Joseph, Joy, Charity, Agnes, and Dorcas Cheptegei (Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic)
The family hope Joy will become an athlete. They also hope Kenya will change before she does.
(Additional reporting: James Gitaka)
(Top photos: Jacob Whitehead/The Athletic; design: Eamonn Dalton)
Culture
His dad’s illness drew Andrew Wiggins away from basketball. Now the Warrior is rediscovering his joy
SAN FRANCISCO — Andrew Wiggins has always been the quiet one in the Golden State Warriors mix of stars, content with chilling in the background while the big personalities and loud voices hoard all the attention. The stage of personality, with its burdens, isn’t worth mounting.
He would sit back and smile, shaking his head as Draymond Green talked his talk, laughing uncontrollably as Steph Curry danced his dance. And when the festivities were done, win or lose, Wiggins would scoop up his young daughters and head home to be with his family, like his father taught him to do.
But over the previous two seasons, Warriors coach Steve Kerr noticed a different kind of quiet taking hold within one of his most important players. Something more than his usual reservedness. Something deeper. As Mitchell Wiggins’ health deteriorated rapidly, his son withdrew. From the team, from the game, from everything.
“It was brutal because it was an ongoing thing for such a long time where his dad was suffering,” Kerr said. “To see someone you love, your father, suffering for such a long period of time — you can imagine how that would impact your daily existence.”
Wiggins took an extended leave of absence to be with his father two seasons ago and missed some time here and there last season as Mitchell went through various treatments. His numbers declined significantly, his defensive energy disappeared and the Warriors went right down with him.
Those who suffer in silence tend to sacrifice empathy. What exactly was wrong, how deep his hurt, was kept locked behind Wiggins’ penchant for privacy. Thus, he was a central figure of blame for the Warriors missing the playoffs and became the subject of the fan base’s trade wishes.
If only fans knew how much none of it mattered.
“Not caring about basketball as much,” Wiggins said. “You got your life to worry about. You’ve got certain things going on in your life that are your priority. Basketball is kind of in the shadows. You try to figure out a good balance.”
Mitchell Wiggins died in September at the age of 64, devastating a close-knit family. Mitchell and his wife, Marita Payne-Wiggins, were both stellar athletes in their younger days, and they helped their children navigate the cutthroat world of professional sports while not losing sight of the most important things in life.
Three months later, the fog has lifted enough for his soul to breathe. The hurt has settled. After wading through months on top of months of pending grief, bereavement has subsided. Life continues for Wiggins, even with the dad-sized hole in his heart.
Where Wiggins once felt lost and helpless while watching his father suffer through various treatments, he has managed to rediscover his spirit and find reconnection in the wake of his death.
It has been an up-and-down start to this season for the Warriors as they search for the help Curry needs to make another run in the Western Conference. One of the most encouraging signs for them to this point is the reappearance of Wiggins’ smile and the return to the souped-up role player who was so integral to the Warriors’ 2022 title.
After two years of missed games, uneven performances and trade rumors, Wiggins is showing signs of emerging from the fog. His father’s death in September, and the long health struggles that preceded it, shook him and his family to the bone. The mourning will never abate, but Wiggins looks like a man at peace with his surroundings.
“My mind is definitely in a better place,” he said.
Andrew Wiggins warms up before a Golden State game at Chase Center. (Noah Graham / NBAE via Getty Images)
It has been a long road to get here. One game before the All-Star break in 2023, Wiggins left the Warriors. He missed the final 25 games of the regular season for what the team called personal reasons. No more specifics were given at the time, and he returned for the playoffs, where the Warriors were bounced in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers.
Wiggins was a more regular presence last season, playing in 71 games. But for a large portion of the season, he wasn’t really there. He averaged just 13.2 points per game, almost four points lower than his previous career low, as a rookie with the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2014-15. He shot 35.8 percent from 3-point range, took only 2.7 free throws per game and floated on defense to the point that Kerr chose to take Wiggins out of the starting lineup for the first time in his career. The Warriors knew Wiggins was carrying a heavy burden while his father was in and out of the hospital.
This season, his numbers are back where they belong — 17.3 points, 4.1 rebounds and 42.6 percent from 3-point range, all numbers at or better than his lone All-Star season in 2021-22. There are still uneven nights, like a 1-for-7 shooting performance from 3 in a loss Monday to the Indiana Pacers. But there are also real glimpses of the difference-maker Wiggins can be, including in a game last weekend against his former team.
As the Warriors started to pull away from the Timberwolves in the fourth quarter on Saturday, burly forward Julius Randle grabbed the ball and took Wiggins to the paint. If this was last season, Wiggins might have given in as Randle backed him down. He might not have been able to summon the strength and the give-a-damn to bow his back, absorb the first hit and respond with force.
Wiggins was giving up a few inches and more than 50 pounds, but he clenched his jaw and got into the fight. He took the first collision, and then a second as Randle backed him down and elevated for a turnaround jumper. Wiggins held his ground, kept his base strong and went right up with Randle, shoving the shot right down the Wolves forward’s throat to preserve a seven-point lead with three minutes to play.
The defensive stand set up a Curry 3, and then another to balloon the lead to double digits. Then came the hammer, an alley-oop dunk from Wiggins and a finger-roll layup in the last two minutes to ice the victory against his former team.
“Just really grinding and just getting back to myself and being with my family and friends,” he said earlier this month. “Just remembering that I’ve been doing this for a long time at a high level. This is what I can do. At the end of the day, just going out there, defending, playing two-way basketball.”
Just like dad back in the day.
Mitchell Wiggins during his time with the Rockets in the 1980s. (Bill Baptist / NBAE via Getty Images; Tim de Frisco / Allsport via Getty Images)
Mitchell Wiggins was a dawg on the court. He was an All-American at Florida State and a first-round draft choice of the Indiana Pacers in 1983. But he made a name for himself as a defensive specialist and rugged, rebounding guard for the great Houston Rockets teams of the mid-1980s.
“He was a warrior,” said Timberwolves television analyst Jim Petersen, who played with Mitchell on those Rockets teams. “He was so competitive. He was an amazing offensive rebounder for a guard, and that tells you something about his toughness. And then also he was a lockdown defender as well. He was our defensive stopper.”
While at Florida State, Mitchell met his future wife, Marita Payne, a sprinter who went on to win two silver medals for Canada in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. They were star athletes, but family was at the center of everything. Andrew has two older brothers and three younger sisters, and the children learned about love, connection and trust by watching their parents.
When Andrew was traded to the Timberwolves before his rookie season in a deal that sent Kevin Love to Cleveland to team up with LeBron James, Mitchell, Marita and their three daughters moved from Toronto to Minnesota to be closer to him. Wiggins’ sisters were fixtures at Target Center during his time there, and the importance of family was a constant theme of his six seasons with the organization.
“You can see the tight-knit group that they were. I mean, it’s pretty evident that family is the most important thing to Andrew,” Petersen said. “And that’s the thing. Your heart was breaking for Andrew when you knew Mitchell was going through his health problems because it was affecting Andrew so much on the court. You could see how connected they are as a group.”
The bond between father and son was no joke. After Wiggins was the second-best player during the Warriors’ run to the championship in 2022, Mitchell Wiggins beamed, but maybe not for the reason you would expect.
The basketball was great, of course. For the first seven seasons of his career, Wiggins had been assailed as a disappointment, a No. 1 overall pick with all the physical talent in the world but without the motor to make a difference. He was a worthy wingman to Curry’s brilliance. Mitchell reveled in the redemption, but he couldn’t stop talking about the father Andrew was to his two daughters, about the brother he was to his siblings, about the son he was to him and Marita.
“Everybody realized the talent he had early on, the athletic talent,” Mitchell told The Athletic in the champagne-soaked postgame celebration. “But the biggest thing that me and his mom are proud of is the man and the son that he became. He’s a father that adores his kids, like I adore my kids. When I see him with his girls, his eyes light up. As a father, that’s when I’m most proud.”
Mitchell Wiggins was, is, a monument in the mind of his All-Star son. Behind the scenes, in private moments, Wiggins struggled to grapple with the reality of life without his father. Trauma tends to arrive suddenly, coming out of nowhere to alter lives. But Wiggins was stalked by it for years, haunted by its inevitability.
Even as Wiggins kept his father’s condition private, the Warriors were well aware of the heartache he endured. They never questioned his need to be away from the team. They never doubted his commitment to the organization.
“Everybody loves Wiggs because of who he is, what kind of human being he is, what kind of father and husband he is,” Kerr said. “And we know the pain that he’s been through the last couple of years. You could see it in his play, but just in his demeanor.”
His father was always there for him, so Andrew did not hesitate to leave basketball behind when Mitchell was in need. There was no debate, no pull back to the game and only steadfast support from the Warriors organization. However long it took, whatever he had to do, they were behind him all the way.
“I wouldn’t say it’s all a blur now, but it was just something that’s going on and you’re literally just taking it day by day,” Wiggins said about taking care of his father. “That’s how it was for me. You’re not thinking big picture. You’re not planning for the future. You’re not thinking about the past. You’re literally taking it day by day.”
Kerr, former GM Bob Myers and all of Wiggins’ teammates closed ranks around him, refusing to let anything leak as the public clamored for more information. It only reinforced Wiggins’ belief in what he has with the Warriors.
“This is a first-class organization,” he said. “I don’t think it gets any better than this, to be honest. This is top notch.”
One of the Wiggins family’s greatest resources throughout their patriarch’s long battle was Dr. Robby Sikka, who befriended Andrew during his time as Timberwolves vice president of basketball operations and player wellness under former lead executive Gersson Rosas. Sikka oversaw all aspects of player health in the position and led the team’s response to COVID-19 in 2020.
So when his father grew ill, Wiggins reached out to Sikka for help in navigating the byzantine health care system. Sikka was a constant presence, answering questions, reaching out to health care professionals and serving as a guiding light through the darkness.
“I was going through a lot, but Robby was always there for me,” Wiggins said. “I trust him. He’s like a brother. He’s part of the family now.”
Sikka also helped Karl-Anthony Towns when his mother fell ill with COVID and eventually died and has grown close with Anthony Edwards ever since the front office Sikka was a part of drafted him No. 1 overall in 2020.
All three players have lost a parent in their young lives (Edwards lost his mother to cancer in 2015 when he was 14). And now all three are investing in an app that Sikka is developing dedicated to giving people access to in-depth medical information and care. The Smart Health app will launch early in 2025 and is designed to help provide average people access to the same kind of expert medical guidance that professional athletes receive. It provides secure storage for medical records to expedite what can be a cumbersome process of sharing personal health data with new doctors. It uses artificial intelligence to answer health questions and it also tracks nutrition, sleep and everything else that goes into maintaining good health.
“What Robby is doing is giving everyone the opportunity to truly have full access to their medical records, so that they don’t always need to make an appointment to answer a question for themselves,” said Towns, who played with Wiggins for five and a half seasons in Minnesota. “I told Robby that as long as we can save lives, that’s all that I’m here for. I think that this opportunity truly has an opportunity to save not just one, but millions of lives.”
For Wiggins, the motivation was simple. Sikka was a crucial part of his family’s journey with Mitchell, giving him a knowledgeable sounding board in the toughest of times. He does not believe that winning Rookie of the Year should be a prerequisite for having access to that type of assistance when a loved one is sick.
“It helps cut out the hassle and gets you straight to the point,” Wiggins said. “It’s always more important and you’re more attached when it’s personal and when you’ve been through something.”
Wiggins smiled as he talked about paying it forward. And he smiled at the gift that is coming his family’s way. His fiancée, Mychal, is pregnant with the couple’s third child. This one is a boy.
“First boy in the family,” he said. “We’re all very excited. We’re all looking forward to it. My daughters are very happy. They talk about it every day. It’s going to be great.”
The Warriors’ plane ride home from Minnesota was joyous, following their much-needed win on the Timberwolves court. But Kerr found a moment even better than Saturday’s rebound victory. It warmed his heart in a way that reminded him of a significance greater than basketball. The real wins following debilitating losses.
He saw Wiggins with his daughters as they roamed the charter plane. He saw Mychal and felt the swell of warmth. He saw Wiggins’ trademark grin, the one that only surfaces from a visceral happiness. It doesn’t come easy. The rare display of Wigg’s widest smile is always a moment in that locker room, and they cherish it as such.
More than perhaps anyone in the Golden State franchise, Kerr knows what such a moment means to Wiggins and what it took to recapture this serenity.
“Just seeing those little girls on the plane,” Kerr said. “They’re just beautiful girls. And Wiggs has that million-megawatt smile. It’s so funny because he’s so quiet. But you can see the gleam in his eyes and in his smile. He loves life, and he loves his family. He’s a very simple person in that regard. He doesn’t need a whole lot. He’s not in this for the fame or the glory. No, he loves to play basketball, he loves his family and he enjoys his existence.”
His father died much too soon. But he didn’t leave his son unprepared. Wiggins, who turns 30 in February, has the blueprint for his own family. Mitchell showed him what it means to be a father from the moment Andrew arrived.
The circle of life produces beauty with its hardships. A beauty exists in this transition for Wiggins. The hurt he feels is evidence of a worthy father. The love he feels for his family is evident of a tradition of passing down.
And now he’ll have a son. Kerr called it karma, Wiggins getting the chance to recreate the wonderful relationship he had with his father.
“I’ve always been really close with my family. That’s just how we grew up. I want that for my kids,” Wiggins said, repeating himself for emphasis. “I want that for my kids.”
This will be the first Christmas without Mitchell. Andrew will be on national television as his Warriors play the Lakers. The spotlight following Curry and LeBron James is bright and sure to shine on Wiggins.
He will assuredly shy away from it as much as humanly possible. But when it does find him, it will shine on a man who again knows peace. A father who has picked up the baton of his patriarch. A son who lost a dad who will never leave.
“I think about my dad every day,” Wiggins said. “Twenty-four seven.”
The Warriors are 15-13 this season, in eighth place in the West and still very much trying to find their way to competitiveness. Wiggins finding his way back to them is a good place to start.
“It’s wonderful to see him at peace,” Kerr said. “It’s obviously a terrible outcome to all of this with his father passing away. I think just peace of mind, expecting a boy here in a couple of months and two beautiful little girls, a great family. He’s happy. And we were all thrilled to see that because of what a wonderful person he is.”
(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; top photos: Nathaniel S. Butler, Garrett Ellwood / NBAE via Getty Images; Kavin Mistry / Getty Images)
Bill Belichick’s foray into college football drew plenty of double takes across the industry, but the logic behind his decision might have been as simple as it was surprising.
“He’s a football coach,” a source close to Belichick said. “He’s going to coach somewhere.”
After 49 seasons in the NFL, Belichick made a stark career change Wednesday when he accepted the head coaching job at the University of North Carolina.
Welcome to Chapel Hill, Bill Belichick!
The eight-time Super Bowl Champion has officially been named our next @UNCFootball Head Coach. #GoHeels x #ChapelBill pic.twitter.com/cnngQI7gnC
— UNC Tar Heels (@GoHeels) December 12, 2024
The 72-year-old’s pursuit of Don Shula’s wins record has been put on hold, perhaps permanently. Belichick needed 15 wins to surpass the NFL’s all-time mark of 347.
The record meant a lot to Belichick, particularly in recent years when it appeared to be more attainable. So, why did he call off the chase?
It’s perhaps more important to assess the situation from the opposite viewpoint.
One NFL team with a coaching vacancy had already ruled out the idea of interviewing Belichick, according to a league source. Sources with a couple of other teams with potential head coach vacancies didn’t believe there’d be enough support within the building to hire Belichick. The New York Jets, who will be hiring a coach and general manager, were never considered a possibility due to their long-running shared animosity for each other.
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And among the seven coaching vacancies last year — excluding the New England Patriots, who fired Belichick — the architect of the greatest dynasty in league history only drew serious interest from the Atlanta Falcons. Several of those teams quickly dismissed the idea of interviewing Belichick, according to league sources. Some even expressed relief Belichick wouldn’t disrupt the organization’s power structure.
Belichick, the most prepared figure in the NFL for so long, had to recognize a chilling reality: He’d once again be a long shot to get a job in the league’s upcoming hiring cycle. It’s common for coaches to put out feelers to gauge their attractiveness to organizations.
“(Belichick) burned a lot of bridges over his career,” a high-ranking team executive said.
Belichick still wanted to coach, though, so it was important for him to act. North Carolina, which employed his father in the 1950s, was the most high-profile program with an opening. Belichick turns 73 in April and couldn’t run the risk of being shut out of another hiring cycle.
“If he wanted to coach again, he almost had to take this job,” another team executive said.
Another longtime Belichick associate thought the move to UNC made sense for other reasons, too. Belichick will essentially have unilateral control over the program, which wouldn’t necessarily be the case if he had gotten another NFL opportunity. And a handful of Belichick’s closest friends — Nick Saban, Greg Schiano, Chip Kelly, Kirk Ferentz and Jedd Fisch — have enjoyed success at the college level. He can use them as resources as he acclimates to a different football world.
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Also consider that Belichick could have waited to see if there’d be openings with the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants or Jacksonville Jaguars — among other teams — but they ultimately might not have been great fits. Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones isn’t ceding control of his front office, and it’s too early to know what the upcoming power structure will look like within the Giants and Jaguars if more drastic changes are on the way.
“There might be some owners who want (Belichick’s) structure and stability, but he is 72,” another longtime executive from a team that was involved in last year’s NFL hiring cycle said. “I think a lot of teams want to build something long-term, and he clearly has a capped timeline.”
Belichick’s resume still stands alone. He is viewed by his peers as the greatest coach of his era, if not in history. And last season, even as the Patriots wallowed to a 4-13 record, a couple of personnel executives said Belichick’s defense still displayed some revolutionary concepts.
But they had fair and objective criticisms about the way things ended with the Patriots, with their record worsening in each of his last two seasons and failing to win a playoff game over his final five years. Parting with quarterback Tom Brady was a head-scratcher, but the failure to find a suitable successor made the matter exponentially worse.
Belichick’s push for organizational control has also been at the center of discussion with teams. One executive referred to the Patriots as a “unicorn” during the Belichick era, as he won three Super Bowls in his first five seasons, gained considerably more control after Scott Pioli’s departure in 2009 and was able to run the team how he saw fit. That’s not a common structure for much of the league.
Plus, the model had deteriorated in Belichick’s later years with the Patriots. There was a push for more collaboration with the 2021 NFL Draft, but that collaboration fell apart in 2022, according to league sources. Patriots scouts were often frustrated by their lack of involvement after the annual combine — nearly two months before the draft — or their general inclusion in the building throughout the season.
“I think people would be concerned about the culture in the building,” a fourth executive said. “(Belichick’s) culture worked when they were winning, but he got fired because they weren’t winning.”
Of course, the culture also extends to the locker room. Modern-day players don’t relate to the old-school coaching approach the way they did 10 or even 20 years ago. As one of Belichick’s former players recently said, “It’s nice to go somewhere and not get told how much you suck every day.”
That player was not alone in that sentiment. And adding to that, coaches and executives from other teams were turned off by Belichick’s public alienation of former Patriots quarterback Mac Jones.
Belichick has enjoyed unprecedented levels of success throughout his career. No one around the league would ever deny that.
But while teams eye a long-term solution with their next head coach, they have a lot of fair questions about the way it fell apart in New England and whether Belichick would be the right fit within their organization. And even if Belichick did turn around an NFL team, his age limits his longevity.
Naturally, the same questions will exist at North Carolina, but here’s the difference: UNC was offering a job, and it was anything but guaranteed the NFL would do the same.
(Photo: Timothy T Ludwig / Getty Images)
ALLEN PARK, Mich. — First came the beating, another desultory setback in the rapidly degenerating professional life of Jared Goff, the face of a flailing franchise’s enduring futility. That was torture enough. What Goff truly dreaded, however, was The Meeting. Summoned to Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell’s office on a late-October Tuesday in 2022, Goff feared the worst, and with good reason. Two days earlier, in an ugly road defeat to the Dallas Cowboys, he’d been responsible for almost as many turnovers (four) as points (six). The Lions were 1-5, and 4-18-1 since Campbell had taken over as a rookie head coach and Goff had become the starting quarterback. It felt like the whole world wanted him benched, and that Campbell, if only out of self-preservation, would imminently grant that wish.
If the perception was that Goff was broken, well, it was a fair assumption. At 24, he’d gone head-to-head with Tom Brady on Super Sunday. Now, having just turned 28, he’d lost his mojo. He was getting booed by the home crowd, and his failings were constantly flaunted. Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay, the man who’d rejected Goff, had just hoisted a Lombardi Trophy in his home stadium, validating his wunderkind status. And he’d done it in his first season with Matthew Stafford, the Lions’ longtime starting quarterback who’d been swapped out for Goff. In dating terms, Goff had been dumped by his partner and was now eating ice cream alone on the couch while watching the ex escort a radiant new flame up the red carpet.
As Goff entered Campbell’s office, he braced himself for bad news. “I know how this thing goes,” he told himself. “I’m not naïve. Is this it for me?” Yet Campbell, an outside-the-box hire with an unflinching nature, told his struggling starter he was sticking with him. And as Goff began to exhale, he had an epiphany.
“Man, I’ve got to stop trying to do too much,” Goff told Campbell. “I’ve been trying to overcome certain things throughout the game, constantly thinking that this is the moment we’re gonna turn it around. I’m squeezing so hard trying to help us win, because we all want it so badly. I have to release that a little bit and just do my job, one play at a time. I’m just gonna do my job and not worry about the rest of it.”
Campbell stared back at his quarterback and smiled. “Jared,” he said, “that’s all I’ve wanted you to do this whole time.”
It was a mental shift that helped Goff manage the emotions he’d experienced since being traded to the Lions after the 2020 season, a move that blindsided him and crushed his confidence. The conversation fortified his bond with Campbell and laid the groundwork for a connection with a famished fan base that would come to view his redemption story as its own. Long before Goff became an MVP candidate and the Lions (10-1), who host the Chicago Bears on Thanksgiving, became the betting favorite to win Super Bowl LIX and inspired an iconic chant, the embattled quarterback unlocked the mystery in the nick of time.
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“It’s like you squeeze so hard, and the actual answer is to release,” Goff explained last week while sitting in an upstairs room of his Bloomfield Hills, Mich., home, which doubles as a film-watching sanctuary and memorabilia alcove. “Everyone wanted to fire Dan, fire (general manager Brad Holmes) and bench me. If we’d kept losing, of course they would. (But) it’s funny — you do your job one play at a time, and a little momentum starts to build. You do it 10 plays in a row, then 15, then 20, and the other 10 on offense are doing their job, and good things start to happen.
“It’s ironic that when you try to do less, more happens.”
Goff is a rock star in the Motor City, a pinpoint passer in the midst of a career year for a team laying waste to its opponents. He may have walked into Campbell’s office with trepidation that day 25 months ago, but he emerged with a bounce in his step that has morphed into a strut.
The day after that fateful meeting, Lions owner Sheila Ford Hamp showed up at practice, spoke to reporters and gave Campbell and Holmes a vote of confidence. Four days later, Goff threw for 321 yards in a 31-27 defeat to the Miami Dolphins. And then, somewhat abruptly, the plot shifted and the losing stopped. The Lions are 32-9 since, a tally that includes their first two postseason victories since Jan. 5, 1992, and Goff’s job security rivals Red Bull driver Max Verstappen’s.
In May, the Lions signed Goff to a four-year, $212 million contract extension, with $170 million guaranteed. In late November, Goff is armed with eye-popping numbers that serve as a sharp rebuttal to any remaining doubters. His 109.9 passer rating is the league’s second best, as is his 72.9 percent completion percentage. He’s averaging an NFL-high 9.02 yards per attempt, and he’s part of an MVP conversation that includes fellow quarterbacks Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen and running backs Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry.
“Jared Goff is operating with as much command and poise as any quarterback in the league,” said San Francisco 49ers assistant head coach/defense Brandon Staley, who was the Rams’ defensive coordinator during Goff’s final season with the team. “They’re putting a lot on his plate pre-snap, and they’re using his experience and knowledge to get into premier plays almost every snap. The timing and ball distribution has been elite all year long. His swagger, unselfishness, and toughness are leading that football team.”
Indianapolis Colts defensive coordinator Gus Bradley, whose team suffered a 24-6 defeat to the Lions on Sunday, views Goff’s success as a direct result of his comfort with Detroit’s offensive scheme: “He has the answers. He knows what he’s looking for. They know how to attack. He and his coaches just see it the same way.”
“He has taken efficiency to a whole new level,” added Atlanta Falcons head coach Raheem Morris.
Since being drafted first overall by the Rams in 2016, the former Cal star has relied upon elite accuracy, a quick release and a penchant for remaining cool under fire. What’s different now, as Staley and Bradley suggest, is Goff’s mental grasp of the position, which deepened when Ben Johnson took over as the Lions’ offensive coordinator after the 2021 season.
“I like to say it’s as much his offense as mine,” said Johnson, who has turned down head coaching opportunities in each of the past two cycles. “It’s really based on what Jared does well, what he felt most comfortable with. And we’ve tried the last two and a half years to challenge him and push him outside his comfort zone.”
Campbell noticed an appreciable difference in his quarterback this past offseason. “When he came in,” Campbell said, “you could tell there was a different feel — like, he wanted to have even more ownership in the offense and to take it to a different level. So now the offense is evolving because of his ability to process and see it.”
Jared Goff’s ownership and understanding of the Lions offense has grown exponentially under offensive coordinator Ben Johnson. (Ryan Kang / Getty Images)
Last month, Johnson told Goff that he’s “now asking these PhD-level questions over the course of the week” that the quarterback hadn’t broached previously. “The game’s slowing down for him, too,” Johnson said. “He can recognize coverages right off the bat. He’ll say during the week, ‘Hey, I know we think that they’re doing Cover 2 in this situation, but if they go man, where do you want me to go with the ball?’ Or, ‘I know it’s not a Cover 0 team, but we’re in this exotic formation, and if they do it versus this and I see it, what do you want me to get to?’”
Two Sundays ago, in the third quarter of the Lions’ 52-6 thrashing of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Goff, en route to a 412-yard passing performance, threw a 5-yard touchdown to tight end Brock Wright that particularly stood out to Johnson. The plan was to deliver a backside throw to wide receiver Tim Patrick, who was lined up to the right of the formation. Goff started by looking left, attempting to get Jags safety Darnell Savage to drift toward Wright, who was running to the far left corner of the end zone. When Goff looked back to his right, he noticed Savage had instead moved to his left toward Patrick — as if the Jags knew exactly what the Lions were planning. Rather than proceeding to his third read, Goff alertly turned back to his left and found Wright, abandoned by Savage, wide open for the easy TD.
“It’s just an example of where he is now,” Johnson said. “It wasn’t like that when he first got here.”
Brock on 🤘#JAXvsDET | 📺 CBS pic.twitter.com/9M4hdMMovV
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) November 17, 2024
Goff’s commitment to intensive film study makes sense, given his physical limitations. Unlike peers such as Jackson, Allen and Patrick Mahomes, Goff can’t rely on his athleticism to get him out of jams and make off-schedule plays. “You do have to find different ways to win in the pocket because you aren’t as fleet of foot,” Goff said. “I have to play disciplined. And the work that I have to do from Monday through Friday, I feel like has to be more. That’s where I feel like I’m able to get my edge, whereas other guys have their athletic ability as their edge.”
There’s another reason Goff is so intent on trying to master his craft: He’s aware of his reputation, and still a bit sensitive about the prevailing perception that McVay, known for his schematic acumen, discarded him because the coach needed an upgrade in that department. It’s a narrative that began in 2017 when it became clear that McVay, then the youngest coach in modern NFL history, was giving his second-year quarterback cues via the in-helmet communications system as Goff waited to receive the snap. It intensified after Goff’s poor performance in L.A.’s 13-3 defeat to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIII.
Because McVay had become the brightest young star in his profession — the joke in league circles was that even his acquaintances were getting head-coaching interviews — it was easy to conclude that Goff wasn’t good enough to bring the coach’s brainy schemes to life. The Rams’ decision to deal him just weeks after he’d come off the bench to win a road playoff game with a broken right thumb seemed abrupt and suggested that there were deep-seated reasons for McVay’s dissatisfaction.
“Everyone externally just assumed that I suck,” Goff said, “because why else would this be happening? People thought, ‘He’s done. He’s damaged goods. His story is over. His career will end in this way. This will be the end of the road.’”
Most of the NFL world, including Rams coach Sean McVay, seemed to think Jared Goff was “damaged goods” by the end of his time in L.A. (Abbie Parr / Getty Images)
The trade hit Goff like an earthquake. The Rams, who’d signed the quarterback to a massive contract extension only 17 months earlier, were so desperate to get out of that deal and land Stafford that they included two first-round draft picks and a third-round selection. Goff got the news while hanging out at his Hidden Hills, Calif., home on a Saturday night in late January, via a phone call from McVay — who was in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, celebrating the deal in real time with Stafford and then-Rams left tackle Andrew Whitworth, one of Goff’s closest friends on the team.
The news broke instantly, before Holmes, the Lions’ newly hired GM, could get ahold of his new quarterback. Eventually, Goff took phone calls from Holmes — who’d been the Rams’ director of college scouting when he was drafted — and Campbell, both of whom were still at the Lions’ facility as midnight approached.
At first, Goff seemed shellshocked, but when he heard the excitement in Holmes’ and Campbell’s voices, he became fired up and defiant. The next morning, he told me, “I’m just excited to be somewhere that I know wants me and appreciates me.” His phrasing was intentional. McVay’s reproach over the past two seasons had beaten him down, and this was a stark juxtaposition.
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Most of the football world viewed him as a declining quarterback who’d be a stopgap starter — at best — for the Lions, but Holmes and Campbell saw things differently. “Everybody created that monster and that was never the case with us,” said Holmes, who called it a “lazy narrative.” Goff, who’d gone 1-11 as a true freshman starter for Cal in 2013, viewed it as a chance to do something epic.
“The opportunity that I have to be at the ground floor of something is something that most guys don’t get in their career,” he recalled thinking. “You can either see it as something that’s happened to you or something that’s happening for you.”
The turnaround didn’t happen quickly — and Goff’s self-esteem suffered along the way. “It felt like he got traded here to never be talked about again,” said Goff’s wife, Christen, who was his girlfriend at the time. The model and actress relocated from L.A. to Detroit after the trade and had an up-close-and-personal view of the struggle. In 2021, the Lions didn’t win their first game until December, beginning with an 0-10-1 stretch that included a 28-19 road defeat to the Rams.
In February, a week before Stafford and the Rams would defeat the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI at SoFi Stadium, I visited Goff at his Hidden Hills home, and he did his best to put a positive spin on the situation. “We all run our own race, whatever that may be,” he told me then, expressing excitement at the prospect of working with Johnson as his coordinator. “It’s part of the journey, and this year obviously was a tough experience. My time will come, whenever that may be, to get another crack at it, and in order to get there, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done.”
So Goff did the work — schematically and psychically. He felt stung by the way his Rams tenure ended and experienced conflicting emotions as they won a Super Bowl without him, but he refused to let bitterness be his driving force.
“It’s not vindictive for me,” he insisted. “And I think that was a big part of the journey, that it couldn’t be. Because that’s not enough. That’s not enough to motivate you to get through the hard times. It was never that. … It truly became, how can I help this team and help this city and be a part of this rebuild and do everything I could for Dan and for this coaching staff?”
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Even as the losses mounted, and Goff sensed he might be out of time, Campbell and Holmes never wavered in their support. Both men had long admired Goff’s mental and physical toughness. As things turned around in 2022, Goff’s grit and refusal to fold began to resonate with a fan base conditioned to wallow in enduring misery. The Lions rallied to make a late playoff push but were eliminated on the final night of the regular season — when the Rams lost to the Seattle Seahawks in overtime. Goff got the news during pregame warmups at Lambeau Field, where the Lions’ NFC North rivals, the Green Bay Packers, still faced a win-and-in scenario. Intent on spoiling the Packers’ party, Goff and his teammates earned a 20-16 victory that ended an era for another former Cal quarterback: It was four-time MVP Aaron Rodgers’ final game with the franchise.
It took 12 games before Dan Campbell and Jared Goff celebrated their first win together, but the Lions never wavered in their support for their QB. (Rey Del Rio / Getty Images)
Last season, as the Lions closed in on their first division title and home playoff game in 30 years, it became clear that Goff might have to confront his demons in a conspicuous setting. Sure enough, as if the bracket were drawn up by screenwriters, the third-seeded Lions hosted the sixth-seeded Rams in a first-round playoff game at Ford Field. If Detroit was going to break an NFL-record nine-game postseason losing streak, Goff would have to get past McVay and Stafford.
In the lead-up to the game, Goff tried hard not to make the story about him. As it turned out, tens of thousands of empathic observers would adopt a different approach.
When Goff entered the tunnel to take the field for pregame warmups 50 minutes before kickoff, his image was projected onto the stadium’s video screens. Spontaneously, fans began chanting his name, increasing the volume minutes later when Stafford, who’d spent 12 years as Detroit’s starter, took the field. It was an acknowledgment of the stakes, of Goff’s difficult journey and of a region’s unmitigated embrace of a player who’d won the respect of the paying public.
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“That’s what it felt like,” Goff recalled. “It was very surreal. I was like, ‘Holy s—; this is incredible.’ … They knew I was dumped by this team. They knew that basically (the Rams) said I wasn’t good enough. And they were saying, ‘No, you’re our guy. You are good enough for us. Let’s go win it.’”
Said Christen Goff: “That was so incredible. Everybody here got it. It’s not like they’re cheering his name because they are obsessed with him and they think he’s just everything. It’s because every single one of those people have been him before, or they just get that story, and it resonates with them. … It didn’t feel like fans; it felt like family.”
On the sideline, Goff sidled up to Johnson and told the coordinator, “Dude, I feel great! Let’s go!”
“Yeah,” Johnson answered, “I’d be feeling pretty good if the whole stadium was chanting my name, too.”
Goff delivered, sealing the Lions’ 24-23 victory with an 11-yard pass to star receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown just after the two-minute warning — a typically bold Campbell second-down call — and the chants got even louder. When he reached the locker room, his teammates were joyfully mimicking the “Jared Goff” mantra. He cherished the moment, believing it was a one-off.
Ja-red GOFF! Ja-red GOFF!#AllGrit pic.twitter.com/NGBoC8KRMN
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) January 15, 2024
“I thought that was the end of it,” Goff said. “But yeah, it’s taken on a life of its own.”
The chant resumed a week later at Ford Field as the Lions defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to reach the NFC Championship Game. Soon after, it went viral, surfacing at a University of Michigan hockey game, a Grand Rapids Griffins hockey game and a high school cheerleading competition in eastern Michigan. The chant has since been busted out at Red Wings and Pistons games, at most Lions road games and at Green Day and Creed concerts.
“Now it’s just a fun thing that everybody’s doing when they’re drunk at a bar, which is honestly just as amazing,” Christen Goff said. “I’ve seen it everywhere. People send me videos; I think somebody got married in Italy and a chant broke out. Now I think it’s Michigan’s inside joke.”
Campbell’s wife, Holly, doesn’t see the phenomenon ceasing anytime soon: “I think 50 years from now, Jared Goff chants will still be happening. I think it’s just a thing now. And it’s beautiful, because it is about the underdog fighting adversity and coming out on top.”
Jared Goff has come to be the perfect representation of Detroit. (Cooper Neill / Getty Images)
Last January, it appeared that Goff’s amazing journey would land him back on the sport’s grandest stage. The Bay Area native returned to his home region for the NFC Championship Game, and Detroit took a commanding, 24-7 halftime lead over the 49ers at Levi’s Stadium. A furious San Francisco comeback dashed that dream — or, quite possibly, delayed it.
The Lions have looked like a legitimate contender from the jump in 2024, and Goff has continued to slay ghosts and smash narratives. In the season opener, he beat the Rams again at Ford Field. In early November, Goff — who as a Golden Bears freshman was pulled from a game at Oregon because he couldn’t throw in a driving rainstorm — completed his first 11 passes, and 18 of 22 overall, in similarly wet conditions in Green Bay.
The following week, in a Sunday night road clash with the Houston Texans, Goff threw five interceptions — more than half his current total for the entire season. Yet the Lions, trailing 23-7 at halftime, rallied to win, 26-23, on Jake Bates’ 52-yard field goal as time expired. Afterward, in the visitors’ locker room, Goff channeled another California native, Kendrick Lamar, and essentially dropped a “Not Like Us” remix while addressing his teammates: “If that ain’t a f—ing lesson that it ain’t over until it’s over, that’s what it is, boys. Way to fight all day. We’re f—ing different. We’re f—ing different than all 31 in this league.”
We found a way pic.twitter.com/lzSSpJVMfM
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) November 11, 2024
Later, Goff harkened back to the trying times he, many of his teammates and their coaches have experienced together, and the resolve it fostered.
“Yeah, we are (different),” Goff said, leaning forward in the chair where he sits during his marathon film-study sessions at home. “There aren’t many teams who can go through that and win, on the road, on ‘Sunday Night Football,’ with five turnovers — the whole thing. It took everyone to win that game.
“There are no other teams like us. You can’t replicate it unless you go through what we’ve been through. Which is not fun. And most people don’t survive. And most head coaches don’t stand firm with it — and stand in the s—, and stand in the mud, and take all the criticism.”
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Goff’s voice rose as he continued.
“I think there were moments where Dan could have turned his back on me,” the quarterback said. “He was the head coach on a team that was 0-10-1, and then at the end of the season we were 3-13-1. Could’ve done it then; could’ve done it in the middle of that first season; could’ve done it the next year when we were 1-6 to start. And he never did. And I’m thankful for that. ‘Cause you see it all over the league, where somebody’s head’s got to fall. They were calling for his head. They were calling for Brad’s head. They were calling for my head. And Dan just held the line and said, ‘No, I believe in what we’re doing here, I believe in Jared, I believe in what we have going on, and he’s our guy.’ And here we are.”
As he continues his unlikely comeback story, Goff is exactly where he wants to be, in a place that appreciates every bit of adversity he has overcome. His name may be chanted all over the world, but the 30-year-old quarterback belongs to Detroit and its appreciative fans, and he wouldn’t want it any other way.
“I think they relate to the journey a lot,” Goff said. “Especially the last four years of everyone telling you you’re not good enough, and you kind of turning away from that and saying, ‘Hey, watch me. Let’s see. Let’s see what happens.’ And that motivates me. But I’m not motivated by that as much as I am motivated by wanting to win for this city.”
(Top photo: Cooper Neill / Getty Images)
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