Josh Jacobs, who’s a 21-year-old running back for the Oakland Raiders, had a childhood similar to that of Jaden Smith‘s character in the 2006 film “The Pursuit of Happyness.” But the NFL player, who just finished his first season in the league, created his own happy ending by making a major purchase.
Readers may recall Smith’s character and his dad Chris Gardner, played by Will Smith, endured homelessness. That was until Gardner landed a job as a stockbroker and turned things around, which happened to the actual Chris Gardner in real life.
NFL.com reports that Jacobs’ father, Marty Jacobs, raised him and his four siblings after splitting with their mother Lachelle in 2006. Jacobs was just eight years old when this began.
In the beginning, all the children lived with Lachelle until Josh Jacobs questioned her about misspending child support payments and got kicked out.
The running back then went to live with his father while his siblings stayed with Lachelle, but Marty wasn’t able to secure a two-bedroom apartment that he was going to get. So they slept in his Chevy Suburban around different places in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Fast-forward to 2020, and Jacobs said that he purchased Marty a house in Oklahoma, which he tweeted about.
“Blessed just bought my pops a house,” he wrote on Tuesday.
Then, on that same day, he shared a video that showed the new house, which had balloons in one of the rooms that read “Welcome home.”
“Real boss moves,” it said on the screen.
Afterward, an obvious emotional Marty appeared with a smiling face and wet eyes, then got teased about it.
“Why you trying not to cry, dude,” a voice said in the background. “You already crying. It already came out.”
And at the end of the video, Jacobs wrote, “I’m real life blessed. I’ve spoke everything I was going to do into existence.”
The clip definitely opened up the floodgates to a lot of comments by people who said they were deeply touched.
“Jacobs is a young man of class & integrity.” someone tweeted. “God bless him, his father, his family. This story warms the heart!”
“Love this. Your dad is so proud of you and your success. May God continue to bless you and your family,” wrote another Twitter user.
In the spring of 2019, ESPN released a mini-documentary on the Oakland Raiders star, where he talked about being homeless as a child and what he learned from it.
“Sleeping in the car, I always look back on it,”said Jacobs in the doc. “It’s always going to be something that molded me into who I am. It might have been rough, but, I mean, it’s my life.”
