Emotional night nearly perfect for new Buc McCoy

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell attended a youth football clinic in Central Park with 2010 prospects the day before the NFL draft. During it, Goodell was approached by an immense man, the big kid from the University of Oklahoma, who had a question for the commissioner.

"Is it OK to cry?" the man asked.

Take one guess who it was.

"Yeah, yeah, that was me," Gerald McCoy said.

His name is Gerald McCoy, he plays defensive tackle and lead handkerchief. And now he's a Buccaneer. His name is Gerald McCoy and he and his family - his dad, his two older sisters and his young daughter - gave us the most poignant moment of the NFL's first prime-time draft Thursday. They were tears of joy and other kinds of tears.

McCoy's started falling when the Bucs phoned and they didn't stop for a long time after that. His designer eyeglasses, the ones he'd picked out for the draft, fogged over. His father, Gerald Sr., an aircraft mechanic, was also weeping as they embraced backstage at Radio City Music Hall. His older sisters, Nicki and Kym, were crying, too.

The only one who wasn't was 4-year-old Nevaeh, all cute in her red and white dress with red bows in her beautiful hair, wondering why Daddy's eyes were so wet as he lifted her up on stage. Nevaeh is "heaven" spelled backward.

Yes it is.

His name is Gerald McCoy and his dream came true.

It was almost perfect. Only ...

"There should have been an extra chair," McCoy said.

He told himself he was going to tough it out, that he wasn't going to cry - no crying.

"Yeah, right," he thought.

He thought of her up on stage with him. He talked to her, softly.

"She's the main reason I'm here," Gerald McCoy said, his eyes still glistening. "I missed her today. I made it, Momma, I made it."

Her name was Patricia Diane McCoy and she passed away nearly three years ago. Her baby, Gerald Keith Bryan McCoy, had her initials sewn into the left cuff of the suit shirt he wore. He showed off her initials as he walked the red carpet into the big music hall.

"I dedicated this day to her," Gerald McCoy said.

Her name was Patricia McCoy and her laugh is her son's laugh. Her playful spirit is her oversized son's spirit. Gerald McCoy is 6 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs 295 pounds, but once wore Cupid's wings to an Oklahoma basketball game on Valentine's Day.

That's just him.

That was just his mom.

"He was her baby," sister Nicki said. "Her smile is his smile. They were best friends. She was like that for all of us."

Her name was Patricia McCoy and she had that light. Everyone was her friend. She always encouraged. But she also told her children never to give up.

"My mother was a people person," the son said. "She loved people, and the fire and the drive that I have came from my mother. She's the one who taught me to be a leader, not a follower, and be the head, not the tail."

Once Gerald tried to quit OU football after his freshman year. He called his mom.

Mom spoke: "We don't quit in this family. If you quit, I'll kill you."

Everyone laughed as Gerald McCoy told that story Thursday night. Those finally dry eyes twinkled.

In June 2007, Patricia McCoy returned home to Oklahoma City for Father's Day. Her human resources job had taken her to San Antonio, but she came home on Father's Day to surprise her husband, their son and daughters.

Even when she had bad headaches all day, "she wouldn't let it spoil the day," Nicki said. She insisted they all go out to dinner. She was taken to the hospital not long after that. It was a brain aneurysm. She got through the surgery, but on the 16th day a heart that had so much to give stopped forever.

His name is Gerald McCoy and he'll try to mean what Warren Sapp once meant to a world champion Bucs defense. He has that Sapp personality - without the edge. He wore No. 93 at OU. So did another Sooners star in the 1970s: Lee Roy Selmon.

Don't let the designer glasses or the smile fool you.

"Once I step across those white lines, I'm an animal," McCoy said.

He was human, so very human on Thursday night.

On stage, he grabbed the league commissioner and hugged him. The tears kept falling. Roger Goodell grinned. Bet it wasn't like that with Ben Roethlisberger.

But this was Gerald McCoy, Patricia's son. And this was their night.

He made it, Momma, he made it.