“He was my little best friend,” the NFL star’s mom tells PEOPLE exclusively ahead of his fourth Super Bowl appearance
Before Patrick Mahomes was an NFL star, his mom, Randi Mahomes, was a young mom with a lot on her plate. Now, she’s reflecting on her journey raising the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback ahead of his fourth Super Bowl appearance in an interview with PEOPLE.
“Patrick is my first child, and I grew up with him basically,” says Randi, 48. “I had him at a young age, and I don’t go out saying that’s the best thing to do, but it was the best thing for me just because it made me grow up.”
The mother-of-three says she felt directionless just before learning she was pregnant with Patrick in 1995 at age 20. “Sometimes, I look back and I’m like, ‘Where would I be if I didn’t have him?’ Because I wasn’t going down a bad road, I just wasn’t going on a road,” Randi says.
Randi shares Patrick, 28, and Jackson Mahomes, 23, with Pat Mahomes Sr. She is also mom to Mia Randall, 12, from another relationship. After graduating high school, she moved out of her parents’ house and was “kind of living on friends’ couches for a few years,” she says. But having Patrick “changed” her into “a whole new person.”
“It was kind of like flipping a coin.” Randi is the youngest of four children, and her mother, Debbie, was the youngest of 11 kids. “So, I have 50-something first cousins,” says Randi. Still, she didn’t have any experience raising children until Patrick was born.
Suddenly, “I had someone that needed me,” says Randi. “And so, for forever, he was my little best friend. We were together 24/7, and I learned with him.”
She continues, “He made me grow up in a good way, in a great way. Being a mother is my favorite thing sometimes, and sometimes it’s hard, but it is my favorite thing, and I always say, ‘Where would I be without it?’
