When Porter Ellett knocked on a Provo, Utah, apartment door collecting fast offerings, he had no idea that the woman inside — distracted by ESPN SportsCenter — would one day be his wife.
Years later, Porter and Carlie Ellett now find themselves on NFL sidelines, raising a family centered on Jesus Christ and learning, as Carlie Ellett recently said on the Church News podcast, to “trust the process and trust Him.”
‘God is in the details’
Porter Ellett grew up in Loa, Utah, loving competition but attending a high school too small for football.
A childhood accident left his right arm nonfunctional; at 16, he chose amputation. Years later, a BYU ward calling to collect fast offerings put him face to face with Carlie McKeon, a lifelong sports fan from Granite Bay, California, who recognized him from a New Era profile her grandfather had given her.
“It’s incredible how God is in the details of the little things,” Porter Ellett said of the meeting that followed.
‘Left-hand man’
Marriage followed, and after a demanding stint with investment banking company Goldman Sachs, the Elletts prayerfully considered a change. On paper, a sports management program in San Francisco, California, seemed obvious. But both felt directed instead to a sports management position at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
The choice soon tested them. Doors into the football program initially stayed closed, and a scandal rocked Baylor’s program. Looking back, they see protection in that detour.
“It was a huge blessing that [God] kept us from getting a job within the football organization,” Carlie Ellett said.
Eventually, a former BYU colleague, strength coach Devin Woodhouse, introduced Porter Ellett to Kansas City Chiefs head coach and Latter-day Saint Andy Reid and his wife, Tammy Reid.
After the 2016 season, Reid called with a job: “You’ll be my right-hand man.”
Ellett quipped, “As long as you’re OK with your right-hand man not having a right hand.”
Reid laughed: “You’ll be my left-hand man then.”
‘Remember who you are’
The mentorship that followed, the Elletts said, shaped both their discipleship and their daily priorities. Porter Ellett recalled Reid telling him, “It’s important that you stay humble and remember who you are.”
For Ellett, that meant returning each year to the family farm in Loa and remembering that being a faithful husband and father comes before any win-loss record.
He also shared the “special relationship” and spiritual influence that the Reids have had on him and his wife. He explained that Reid and he often give each other priesthood blessings.
Ellett also remembered Reid leaning over after a time when they blessed the Elletts’ son, saying, “Now that the important stuff’s out of the way, maybe we can go win a football game.” For the Elletts, that line captures ordered discipleship — faith first, then everything else.
‘The Savior at the center’
Carlie Ellett added a conviction that has steadied their home: “We’ve just always kept the Savior at the center.”
On game-day Sundays, she takes the children to church before heading to the stadium, a weekly message that “Dad has a job. It’s not your job, and your job is to go to church on Sunday.”
Their oldest son, Brigham, has shaped that worship in unexpected ways.
After two traumatic brain injuries in early childhood, he was diagnosed with autism apraxia and is nonverbal. The Elletts do not romanticize the hard days, but they see grace in them.
“You have moments that are really hard, where you feel alone, completely exhausted or completely broken down,” Porter Ellett said. “And it’s amazing how he knows, and he’ll just give you a hug or a kiss and just lay by you.”
‘What do you know now?’
Asked the podcast’s closing question — “What do you know now?” — Carlie Ellett answered with a scripture that framed her childhood and their marriage: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart” (Proverbs 3:5).
“As you trust the process and trust Him and trust the answers He’s given you and trust His plan,” she said, “it works out and blesses your life in a way that you could have never orchestrated on your own.”
Porter Ellett said, “Looking back on our lives, I think it’s important that you own your life.”
He said that can help “you become extremely grateful for a Savior.”
Concluding with his testimony, Ellett shared that he is “so extremely grateful for Carlie and for our Savior, for the gospel of Jesus Christ that we can lean on and study and go to the temple and pray about decisions in our lives and receive guidance for them.”
