In the bluebonnet fields of Temple, Texas, the seeds of athletic talent were sown for the Beckham family. Margaret Ann Beckham Jones’s husband, James, would throw ball toward a young O.J. Beckham during the summer afternoons, 15 years ago. It became a tradition for the kid to run with the ball through the purple patch until twilight, while Grandma Margaret watched on. Fast forward to a few days before her grandson’s NFL Daft, she showed Odell Beckham Jr. a picture of him, carefree, playing football across the street.

But Margaret was an athlete too and through her grandson, she reminisced about the days she played volleyball. She was the best among the Class of 1966 at Dunbar High School and played the sport until she was 26. Her athletic genes helped her son— Odell Sr.— become a running back at LSU and eventually, Odell Beckham Jr. had the perfect base to enter the NFL. It was simply his destiny.

“When I would babysit him, they lived in an apartment upstairs and the neighbor would come up and yell, ‘You’ve got to stop that boy from running, or y’all are gonna have to move!” Grandma Margaret once shared. But no one stopped the kid from running, and in 2010, Auburn offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn spotted him hurling passes 60 yards downfield. The rest is history. But he gets his athleticism from both sides of his family.

Beckham Sr. once said about his son’s NFL career, “It’s something that has never happened in my family. The chain has been broken and I’m very ecstatic.” The NFL player’s mother, Heather Van Norman, was a four-time all-American on the LSU track team between 1991 and 1993. She was training for the 1992 Olympic trials when learned she was pregnant with Odell.

However, it is now a sad time for the Beckhams as Grandma Margaret passed away. On September 21, 2024, OBJ’s post painted a picture of heartbreak rather than joy. Beckham Jr. took to Instagram stories to share an old photo of himself with his grandmother. The caption read, “Rest easy angel! I love you big momma.”

For Beckham, family has been the bedrock of his success. He has famously been quoted saying, “I’m a momma’s boy. My mom worked very, very hard to be able to provide everything for me.” But it’s clear that ‘Big Momma’ played an equally large part in shaping the man behind the helmet.

The passing of his grandmother occurred at the same time that Beckham was beginning to settle into his new role with the Miami Dolphins. Fans now wonder how this personal tragedy might impact his performance on the field. 

Odell Beckham Jr: Destined for success

“I’m going to be in the NFL,” he once told his mother. While he was a multi-sport athlete at Isidore Newman School, he found his calling in football. He even played for LSU before joining the NFL.

However, in 2018, his high school coach, Nelson Stewart, made some revelations. “He was the quickest kid I had ever seen. The way he’d start, stop and run all over the place – his athleticism was unbelievable. He was very small, but just so quick and fearless in everything he did.”

“He was starting as a varsity player probably before he was ready physically. He was very small, he didn’t weigh a lot, but he just had so much ability.”

Eventually, he went on to become the Giants’ highest draft pick since Eli Manning. Fast forward to 2024, he signed with the Dolphins in March, and though he was excited, he had to start the season on the physically unable-to-perform list. So he had to miss a couple of games. He had picked an undisclosed injury.