COLLEGE PARK, Md. — On a Sunday in May, Marty McNair arrived at Mike Locksley’s home for a large, expansive post-funeral gathering to celebrate the life of Venita Locksley, Mike’s mother, a victim of cancer. What he walked into was an intimate affair, not large at all, of mostly close relatives, a family-only function that, given his invitation, left him finally understanding the full breadth of his bond with Maryland’s new head football coach. “I really saw the magnitude of the relationship,” McNair says. “I was kind of like, ‘O.K., we really are cool.’”
Cool, in this case, carries with it a deeper meaning, because there is no good word to describe what has unfolded here—two fathers, Mike and Marty, uniting over the tragic deaths of their sons, Meiko and Jordan.