NFL Player's New Son Makes Surprise Arrival

An NFL player says he made the catch of a lifetime before the 2020 season even started, ESPN reports. Kevin Byard, star safety for the Tennessee Titans, says his wife suddenly gave birth on Aug. 23 in their Tennessee home—and he was the only one there to help. Byard says it all began when his wife, Clarke, woke him up at 10:30pm saying her contractions were "pretty bad." So he called their doula to meet them at the hospital, a plan that didn't last long: "She quickly told me, 'Call her back. Tell her to meet us at the house,'" Byard says. "Now I'm really starting to scramble a little bit." Soon Clarke was on the floor and their doula on the speakerphone.

Try to get her up and in the bathtub, the doula suggested. "So I'm trying just to check back there, kind of pulled her pants down a little bit just to see what’s going on, and the head was already poking out," says Byard. "So at this point, I'm back out there like, 'Oh man, the head's poking out!'" On the doula's advice, Byard says he supported the head and made sure the umbilical cord wasn't choking the neck. About 15 minutes later, "everything just kind of slipped out. I kind of caught him in my arms." And Kevin Byard IV, their second child, was born. Byard tells USA Today that it's "a story that I'm going to be able to tell my son for the rest of our days." (More uplifting news stories.)