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Paolo UggettiESPN
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — One of the “fields” where Emari Demercado first played football was just about 10 yards long and no more than four feet wide. The tight hallway where the TCU running back and his older brother, Emsley, pretended they were quarterbacks, running backs and safeties as kids remains intact to this day, flanked by pictures of a young Emari on one side and a case full of his football trophies on the other. It’s exactly one mile away from Touchdown Drive, the street that leads to SoFi Stadium.
It’s been 28 years since Demercado’s mother, Karen Bradley, moved into the upstairs apartment unit on Walnut Street and raised Demercado through a breast cancer diagnosis and multiple surgeries, plus her son’s football career that began in earnest when he was 9. Two years after starting to play tackle football at nearby Jesse Owens Park, Demercado told Bradley his plan: play at local high school powerhouse St. John Bosco, then at Oregon and eventually, in the NFL.
So far, Demercado — who played at Carson High and Downey High instead — is 0-for-2 in that quest, but he now stands on the brink of something far bigger thanks to a breakout performance against Michigan in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl that has TCU playing in the sport’s biggest game, the College Football Playoff National Championship against defending champ Georgia (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN App), at — you guessed it — SoFi Stadium.
“I think I told him all week that God is a comedian and he has a fun way of turning things around in your favor,” TCU running backs coach Anthony Jones Jr. said. “You’ve dedicated so much to TCU, waited your turn, played with injuries, you got multiple degrees and you’ve been away from family and he allows you to finish your TCU career in the title game five blocks away from where you were born.”
The 23-year-old Demercado has spent the last five seasons 1,500 miles away in Fort Worth, Texas, playing the game his mom knew he was born to play since he was 2, biding his time, waiting — but not expecting — for the spotlight to catch a piece of his story. Now, Demercado’s journey has made its way to not only center stage, but also his childhood backyard.
“A year ago, I wasn’t even really playing, honestly,” Demercado said. “To be playing in there is a surreal thing. … It’s like a 15-minute walk.”
Los Angeles is not a walking city. The smog in the air, the traffic on the 405 freeway and the way everywhere is at least 30 minutes from anywhere are enough clues to show that the odometer (and the price of gas), not the step counter or the subway, is king. But when Monday night comes, Demercado’s family might be better off walking to the end of their street making a left and walking all the way to the stadium to watch the Frogs running back play in the biggest game of his life rather than getting into their cars.
“Of course everybody’s asking me if we’re going to walk there,” Bradley said, laughing. She is a mail carrier who doesn’t mind walking, but will avoid it when she doesn’t have to. Demercado’s brother, however, is all for taking the stroll. “Right now, it’s still a dilemma whether we’re going to walk or not,” he said.
0:48
Emari Demercado sets up TCU with a 69-yard run and Max Duggan cashes in for a TD on the very next play.
AS SHE SITS inside her apartment after returning from a baby shower to celebrate Demercado’s future child the Friday night before the title game, Bradley flips through a homemade scrapbook where she kept every form of communication, camp invite, business card and recruiting letter that Demercado got from colleges while he was in high school.
The physical memory bank spans the country, with correspondence from schools like Harvard and Yale as well as Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Army and Boise State. The entire binder is like an extremely detailed Wikipedia page come to life, a nostalgic notebook of what could have been, but also a palpable reminder of why Bradley is glad none of it ever materialized.
“TCU was the right fit,” Bradley said. “I’m glad he stayed there.”
Demercado’s path to Fort Worth began with a high school season that attracted plenty of interest but ended with an ankle injury that may as well have shuttered his mailbox. The interest dried up to the point where both Bradley and Demercado were put in a tough position: Would he go to a four-year school even if the fit didn’t seem ideal? Or could they find an alternate route?
It did not take Demercado very long to be convinced that spending one year at Saddleback College, a community college in Mission Viejo, California, and using that as a jumping off point to a Division I program was the right move. He had done his research and seen that a former Saddleback running back (Edward Vander) had been able to go from there to Montana State.
Bradley — who said her son had the grades to go almost anywhere — had to be persuaded, but in the end they all committed to the plan and Demercado moved down to Orange County. While at Saddleback, Bradley and Emsley tried to take matters into their own hands, publishing Demercado’s highlights on Twitter to bring more attention to the kind of season he was having.
“Getting him the ball 25 or more times a game was a key component to our success,” Saddleback coach Mark McElroy said. “From the very beginning, I knew he could play Division I football. He was one of the very best players I’ve ever, ever coached.”
By the time Demercado was ready for liftoff, the interest in him from different schools had returned, but not without some caveats. UCLA, for example, wanted him to spend one more year at junior college. Other schools wanted him to wait until a scholarship opened up. TCU, meanwhile, did not hesitate and offered him right away.
“It was one of their [graduate assistants],” Demercado said. “He’s not there anymore, but he brought me up in a recruiting meeting and that’s how they ended up finding me.”
Bradley still remembers the moment Demercado called with the news. She was recovering from surgery and resting when the phone rang. Her son’s voice was much louder and more animated than usual.
“He said, ‘Mom, they offered me!’ and I said, ‘Who did?'” Bradley said. “He said, ‘TCU’ “and I went, ‘What’s TCU?'”
It took one visit to Fort Worth for Bradley to be all-in. She loved the city, the campus and the family vibes that the program had. Demercado agreed and began to get comfortable despite the fact that he had multiple position coaches during his first four seasons. Off the field, he finished a bachelor’s degree in business economics and most recently, a graduate degree in business analytics.
Bradley said there was talk of looking at other options as Demercado entered his final college season, but that the familiarity and built-in comfort of TCU ended up winning out. It also helped that running backs coach Jones Jr. reached out to Bradley to impress upon her that Demercado was going to be cared for on and off the field. And when Demercado was convinced to at least stay through spring camp, it didn’t take long for him to buy into what new head coach Sonny Dykes and Co. were selling.
“He had a number of reasons to leave, including a coaching change,” Jones Jr. said. “But he bought in, stayed the course and I don’t think we’d be in this position if it wasn’t for him.”
Demercado’s role did not change much. He was still a consistent backup tailback that got his share of carries but almost never the full opportunity to be a featured player. But when starting running back Kendre Miller went down with an injury in the first half of the playoff semifinal, that changed.
“All he needed,” McElroy said, “was a chance.”
THE BIGGEST GAME of Demercado’s career happened to take place at the perfect time. With 20 members of his family who had made the trip to Arizona from Los Angeles in the stands, Demercado stepped in for an injured Miller and helped spearhead the 51-45 upset of Michigan with a 150-yard performance that included a touchdown and a 69-yard run.
The way Demercado was able to run nearly at will and average 8.8 yards per carry, it almost felt like Michigan’s defense had sold out to stop Miller but hadn’t prepared as well for his backup. That notion was incorrect.
In the aftermath of the Frogs’ win on New Year’s Eve, Demercado ran into a Michigan player at the team hotel. The player, a walk-on, congratulated Demercado on the victory and told him he had played the role of Demercado on the scout team offense over the last few weeks of practice. The Wolverines had indeed prepared for Demercado; they just hadn’t been able to stop him.
“I think it’s a credit to the work ethic that my high school coach put in me just to be able to make it to this point,” Demercado said. “There’s a lot of moments where I could have given up, but knowing what I’m capable of, knowing what I could do, that’s what’s taken me here.”
That kind of performance had been a long time coming for Demercado. In addition to being at TCU since 2018, he had never crossed the 100-yard rushing mark in any game. His 622 yards on the ground this season are a career high.
“He has a tremendous amount of experience because he’s been the one mainstay, really, at TCU for a long time,” Dykes said. “He has never really been a starter, but has been probably as important as any player on our team through the years.”
The running game has been an integral part of TCU’s offense all season. Leading that charge has been Miller, who ran for 1,399 yards and 17 touchdowns. But with Miller admitting he has just a 50-50 chance of playing Monday because of a knee injury that is only about half healed, the burden of carrying the Horned Frogs’ offense on the ground in advance of the title game has fallen to the local kid.
“He’s such a special player, what he does, whether it’s running the ball, whether it’s in pass pro, being a leader for our team, being a leader in the running back room,” quarterback Max Duggan said. “He never complains about touches, never complains reps. To see him get that spot at that moment was pretty special for him.”
Dykes and Duggan have been leading the chorus of praise from TCU staffers and players about Demercado this week. As one of the veterans on the team, his presence has been integral to not just the chemistry with the other backs, but the team as a whole.
“I’m trying to find ways to get him for another year,” Jones Jr. said with a laugh. “There’s got to be some kind of waiver so I can get him to stick around.”
No matter the result Monday night, Demercado will fly back to Fort Worth with the team, but it won’t be long before he returns to Los Angeles and gets to come back to Inglewood to eat at his favorite spot: Wi Jammin, a Caribbean restaurant. His play has earned him an invite to the Senior Bowl at the Rose Bowl later this month, which Bradley is just as excited to attend as the championship game.
After that, Demercado will take his shot at the third part of the plan he outlined to his mom years ago — the NFL. But whatever happens in that regard, Dykes believes the running back will find success nonetheless.
“When he’s done playing football is when he’ll really be successful because he’s just a brilliant guy,” Dykes said. “And he’s going to be an incredible businessman when he’s done with his football career. Twenty years, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll be hitting him up for a job, saying ‘don’t forget about me.’ See if he’s got a small role for me in some company that he’s running.”
Whether it’s through football or business, Demercado has one more goal he wants to accomplish, one he’s been talking about since he was a kid: buying his mom a house. Bradley has lived in that same apartment since 1995 and, as a creature of habit, has had no desire to leave. This week, with a short commute and a chance to see her son play in the national championship at the biggest stadium in town, her consistency — as well as her son’s — has paid off.
“I want to sit in the front,” Bradley said Friday. She plans to get to the ticket pick-up line almost two hours early just to make sure that her seats are some of the best for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “Who wouldn’t want to be in the best seats? It’s my first time going there and my son is playing.”
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