The past two days have likely been a wave of emotions for Derrick Harmon. Less than 24 hours after the Steelers selected him with the 21st overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, Harmon’s mother, Tiffany Saine, died, the team confirmed to KDKA-TV on Friday.
After he was drafted, Harmon told several members of the Pittsburgh media that his mother was on life support and that he was headed straight to the hospital to tell her that he had just been drafted. She died shortly after Harmon had shared the news with her.
Harmon had previously shared that his mother had suffered a stroke during his freshman year at Michigan State which left her paralyzed on her left side. He said that she had undergone over a half-dozen brain surgeries prior to suffering her stroke.
In January, leading up to Oregon’s Rose Bowl matchup with Ohio State, Harmon revealed that he used his NIL money to purchase an accessible van for his mom.
His mother’s condition left Harmon with a difficult decision when it came to transferring from Michigan State (which was roughly 45 minutes from his home) to Oregon after the 2023 season. But a conversation with his mother convinced him to do so.
“I sat down with my mom and we had a discussion,” he said. “She told me that every decision I made up to this point was for her, and it was time to make a decision for myself. I carried that throughout the whole process of going the whole 2,000 miles all the way to Oregon.
“She’s the reason why I’m here. She’s the one that did everything for me to get to this point. … I’m forever grateful.”
Instead of talking about himself, Harmon spent a considerable portion of Thursday night discussing his mother and the role she played in his journey.
“Man, how resilient she was,” Harmon said when he was asked about how she inspired him. “Just growing up, from my standpoint, my situation, I grew up with her having probably seven, eight brain surgeries. And after all those brain surgeries, she did not give up. She still took me to practice, still went to work. And I always, always got in the back of my head, from the beginning of my college career, was, why can I keep going if I’m tired, I’m injured, whatever it is, why can I keep going. If she can get up and she can keep going after brain surgery. So, just her resilience, and hard work.
“She was my inspiration.”
