University of Pittsburgh Athletics
To Whom Much Is Given: Elijah Lagg's Fight for Foster Kids
9/10/2026 5:00:00 PM | Football
Before the season opener against Miami (OH), three little girls stood on the field at Acrisure Stadium, scanning the field for the one number they knew: 17.
They found it on the wrong player first. Cole Woodson, another Pitt Panther, wears the same number. For a second, they hesitated. This was close, but it wasn't him.
Then Elijah Lagg came out of the tunnel, and the girls stopped waiting.
They ran. They cut across the corner of the field, weaving past linemen mid-warmup, drawing worried glances from the adults trying to keep up with them.
But when they reached him, none of that mattered. It was pure joy. The kind that doesn't get manufactured for a highlight reel.
For most players, the 24 hours before a game are sacred and silent. Lagg doesn't talk to anyone outside his circle. He doesn't deviate. But this time, for these three girls — his parents' foster daughters — he broke the routine.
"I thought, you know what, it's not about me," Lagg said. "Let's get the girls out there. Let's get them to experience this... I always play better when I'm enjoying it, and when I'm not taking it too seriously."
That day, in what he called an almost impossibly perfect script, Lagg caught his first career touchdown. Fifteen members of his family were in the stands. His mom, in the chaos of celebrating, spilled a soda on the strangers sitting in front of her.
"It was just me versus coverage and making a tough catch," Lagg said. "That was exactly how I would have wanted it to go."
But the moment that stuck wasn't the catch. It was the girls on the field beforehand — and it's the reason Lagg is now running a fundraiser for two foster care nonprofits, The Call in Arkansas and Foster Love in Pittsburgh.
A Family Built on the Idea That Adoption Isn't an Afterthought
Lagg's family didn't wait for an official title to start taking people in.
"They've always been foster parents without the title," Lagg said. "We've always welcomed several different people into our house that may not have been foster kids, but we took care of them, and they were part of our life, part of our family."
His sister, Lydia, was adopted at 13, when Lagg was seven. The lesson landed early.
"It's our duty to take care of people," Lagg said. "Adoption is God's idea; it's not man's idea."
It wasn't until recently, within the last year or two, that his parents were formally certified as foster parents. But the instinct long preceded the paperwork.
When his mom took a job with The Call in Arkansas, Lagg started showing up to help her move supplies, and the work stopped being abstract.
"I saw the foster children. I saw what went into it," he said. "I think this is an area that could use some help."
Nerrylee Lagg, Elijah's mother, has spent more than two decades in and around foster care and adoption. She's watched her son grow up inside that world, not as an observer, but as a participant.
And she's watched the same instinct show up in an entirely different arena: the one where he's spent years fighting for playing time.
For her, those two paths aren't really separate. The kid who fought his way onto the field and the young man now raising money for foster kids are running on the same fuel.
"He's had to claw for every single opportunity he's gotten in the football realm," she said. "It's also the reason why he wanted the number 17 so bad — he never wanted to forget being 71 as a tackle... and it's the same thing with being able to financially help someone. I knew he would."
Nerrylee is careful about what people assume foster kids already know how to do, versus what they were simply never given the chance to learn. It's a distinction she's seen play out again and again in her own home.
"It's not innate to know how to be a sister or a brother," she said. "Some of them have never been to a restaurant. Some of them have never been spoken to with kindness... There's a saying: a plane landing safely never makes the news. All the things you hear about foster care are always the terrible situations. Elijah's been able to witness the beautiful things."
Most college athletes let those kinds of relationships shrink down to holidays and the occasional phone call. Lagg has resisted that pull. Even in the middle of a football season, he's kept a daily rhythm with the girls that has nothing to do with convenience.
He calls almost every day. Asks about their days. Takes them cliff jumping, to teach them how to be brave. He may not physically be around all the time, but it's important for him to be there even if it is just through a screen.
That consistency is exactly why one small moment has stuck with him — a conversation the girls had among themselves, with no adults prompting it and no cameras around.
The two youngest girls came into the family first, and by the time the oldest joined them, Lagg was already back at school for spring football. She hadn't had the chance to meet him yet.
"They were assuring her, 'No, he's real. He's a real person,'" Lagg said, laughing. "I just thought that was the funniest thing ever. They were talking about me like I was some sort of folklore legend."
Why Pittsburgh, Too
Lagg didn't grow up anywhere near Pittsburgh. His family is rooted in Mississippi and Arkansas. He truly never expected to end up in the Steel City, it was so far off his radar.
But when it came time to decide where to direct a second wave of fundraising, he didn't limit it to home.
"The number one thing about Pittsburgh is the people are just top class," Lagg said. "They welcomed me with open arms, even though they don't know me from Adam. It was important to me that I could give back to this community I get to be a part of."
His mother said the moment their family walked onto campus they knew it was the right place. Not only for football, but for how Pitt develops the whole person and even how that extends to welcoming their families.
"Pitt doing that for the girls and letting them walk out on that field," Nerrylee said. "Cheerleaders stopped — they didn't even know about it. But the cheerleaders at the Panther Prowl stopped, talked to the girls and wanted to know all about them. It seemed like everybody wanted to make it special, and they didn't even know that they were supposed to."
Now Lagg is trying to build something out of that feeling. He's running a raffle, with a Florida State game-day package, a downtown Pittsburgh hotel stay, and airline vouchers up for grabs, to raise money for The Call in Arkansas. If enough tickets sell, he's pledged a share of it to the Foster Love Project here in Pittsburgh, too.
Ask him what success looks like for the fundraiser, and he doesn't lead with a number.
"Whoever hears that they would donate and try to be a part in any way they can," he said. "It doesn't have to be a donation thing. It doesn't have to be coming to the game. But if they can just find a way to help — making food, taking care of people — that's the biggest message I would try to promote."
It's the same message his family has lived by for twenty years, distilled into one sentence: to whom much is given, much is required.
Lagg has been given a Power Four football program, a platform, and — on one September afternoon — a moment on the field with three girls who'd never stop believing he was real.
He's just trying to make sure that door stays open for someone else, too.
