Trusting in the Lord might not come easy to everyone, but those who develop that faith are promised, “He shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
For husband-and-wife team Porter and Carlie Ellett, much of their journey of trust has played out on the field of the biggest sport in the United States.
In this episode of the Church News podcast, the Elletts join Church News editor Ryan Jensen to share their story of faith, family and the unique experience of working in the environment of the National Football League with the Kansas City Chiefs as an assistant coach. Porter Ellett talks about overcoming a childhood accident that resulted in an amputation years later as a teenager. He and Carlie Ellett share how communication and faithfully living the gospel of Jesus Christ have helped them develop trust and resilience with God and in family life.
Listen to this episode of the Church News podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, bookshelf PLUS, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
Transcript:
Jon Ryan Jensen: This podcast was recorded prior to the passing of President Russell M. Nelson, 17th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some edits have been made to note his passing, and some interviews include remarks made before his death.
0:21
Porter Ellett: But I think for me now, looking back on our lives, I think it’s important that you enjoy that moment in life that you’re in. So, I’m 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. And I think when you have that confidence in “No, this is who I am,” it really gives you strength to understand what you can become as well. Yeah, I think when it comes to living your life, you become extremely grateful for a Savior. Which goes to show you, again, God’s in the details of our lives.
0:59
Jon Ryan Jensen: This is Jon Ryan Jensen, editor of the Church News. Welcome to the Church News podcast. Today, we are taking you on a journey of connection as we discuss news and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Porter and Carlie Ellett and their children are both much like many other families and also not at all like most other families. Many couples and families have shared in the journey of building faith in Jesus Christ together, but few have done so while on the field of the biggest sport in the United States.
In this episode of the Church News podcast, the Elletts talk about their courtship, a growing family and the unique experience of working in the environment of the National Football League with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Porter talks about overcoming a childhood accident that resulted in an amputation years later as a teenager. He and Carlie talk about the spiritual mentorship of Chiefs Head Coach Andy Reid and his wife, Tammy. And the couple share the way their son helped their testimonies grow as he made the decision to be baptized recently.
They joined the podcast from their home just prior to the first game of the 2025 football season. Porter, Carlie, thank you for joining us today on the Church News podcast.
Carlie Ellett: Happy to be here.
Porter Ellett: Yeah, our pleasure. Thanks for having us.
2:14
Jon Ryan Jensen: So, I would love for you to share a little bit about the two of you, where you’re from and kind of how the two of you got together, before we get too deep into your story.
So can you share just a little bit about how the two of you grew up?
Porter Ellett: So, I grew up on a farm in central Utah, a really small town, like 400 people. Played a lot of sports growing up, baseball, basketball. I ran track and cross-country, and we weren’t a big enough school for football, or else I would have done that too. Graduated from high school; chose to serve a mission; went to Los Angeles, California; and then ended up at BYU. I didn’t apply to BYU myself. My mother actually did that for me. So she was like — my last phone call home — she was like, “Hey, just by the way, you got into BYU.” And I was like, “Well, I’m not going there.”
Carlie Ellett: Hopefully there’s not a statue of limitations on your degree, and they’ll come back and take it.
3:10
Porter Ellett: But she was like, “Just pray about it.” And that’s how they get you to go to BYU. So, I came back from my mission, got to BYU. I got a ward calling in my ward to be a fast-offering collector. Yeah, “Go knock on doors and ask people if they’re good with their tithing.” So that’s what I did. And then that’s how I met Carlie. So she can take it from there.
3:32
Carlie Ellett: And I — it’s funny, because we’re from completely different worlds, but then also kind of had a lot of similarities, too. I’m from Granite Bay, California, so much larger than a small town that Porter’s from, but I also grew up loving and playing sports, so we always had that in common. And then I would say both of our parents have been great examples of how to live your testimony and how to teach the gospel. So we were both fortunate to have that background, even though we come from literally completely different worlds. I didn’t know anything about any farm animals until I pulled up to Loa [in Utah]. I didn’t even know — I couldn’t have pointed at a piece of machinery on the farm and told you if it was a tractor. I had no idea. So we come from very different worlds.
But then yeah, I was actually in my sophomore year at BYU. I was moving into Liberty Square apartments, and I couldn’t get into my apartment for a couple days. You know, they do Education Week, and so everybody has to be kicked out in Provo. So I was actually staying with my grandparents, and my late grandpa at the time was working at Discover, the credit card. And we had an evening ritual where every night he and I would pop popcorn and watch the top 10 plays on SportsCenter. And I came downstairs one evening to embark on our ritual, and he wasn’t there, and I couldn’t find him, so I went searching the house, and I found him in his study, and he had piles of Church magazines laid out in his study.
So he’s rifling through all these Church magazines, and I took one look at him and decided that was not something I wanted to be a part of. So I went to go enjoy popcorn and SportsCenter. And a little while later, he came upstairs, and he plopped a New Era down on my lap, and it was a couple years old at that point, and it had this picture of a one-armed baseball player on the cover. And I was like, “Oh, cool. Thanks. A magazine.” He’s like, “No, at work today, I was talking to his aunt, and he’s going to be at BYU this year. She told me all about his article in the New Era, so I think you should read it.” So I humored him, and I read it.
And he was like, “What do you think?” I’m like, “Yeah, he sounds great.” And he goes, “No, I think you guys would be really great together. So you should get to BYU and look him up.” And I was like, “Grandpa, that is not how it works anymore. There’s a lot of students at BYU. I’ll never even see that guy.” And lo and behold, he gets this calling as a fast-offerings collector, and he knocks on my door one night while collecting fast offerings, and there was the one-armed baseball player from the New Era. And so, I think it was a couple weeks later, I was visiting my grandparents, and I had to go back to my grandpa and be like, “So, I met the guy from the New Era, and you were right.” So I was humbled a little bit.
6:22
Porter Ellett: It’s funny because when I knocked on the door, she paid her fast offerings online. So I was like, “Hey, does anybody need —”
Carlie Ellett: I didn’t know people still did it in an envelope.
Porter Ellett: Yeah, they didn’t. So I was like, “Does anybody else need to?” And she’s like, “Well, I’ll ask my roommates” or something. But she was so caught up in watching SportsCenter that she didn’t really want to pay attention to what I was saying.
Carlie Ellett: I didn’t even look at him.
Porter Ellett: So I kept bothering her about it, like, “Hey, hey —”
Carlie Ellett: “Who’s your team?”
Porter Ellett: Yeah, she was wearing some Tennessee Lady Vols shorts. So I was like, “Oh, hey, Pat Summit.” And then finally, she turned and looked at me and realized who I was. But it was funny, because there’s two things that I think for me, at least, stood out about that. I got this calling, but by magnifying it, I met my wife, which is crazy. And then also, the New Era article, I remember they asked me in high school, because I remember them asking me, “What do you want to get out of this interview? Or what would you like to see happen with this?” And I remember thinking, “Well, if it just blesses one person’s life or makes one person’s life better, then it was worth it.” And it was funny because two, three years later, it was my life that it made better.
But I just think it’s incredible how God’s in the details of the little things and how you end up, how His plan ends up working together. And it was a miracle that we met each other, and then also, just like she said, how we grew up in such different circumstances, but also so similar, and those things complement each other in our life today, even.
7:55
Jon Ryan Jensen: That’s awesome. So, you’ve delved into this a little bit, but we haven’t told the story. So, Porter, you are unique in that you had an accident when you were a little boy, and now you’ve been featured not only in the New Era, but every local TV station in Utah has covered you. Many NFL teams and reporters have covered you as well, and we’ll get to why they’re interested in you in a second.
But can you talk a little bit about your experience and that accident?
8:31
Porter Ellett: So, I was 4 years old, and I had asked my dad — we had sheep that we would run on public lands — so I’d asked him, when I was 4 years old, I asked if I could ride in the back of the truck. At first, he was hesitant, didn’t want me to do it. But we had other kids, and we were all kind of in there together, and he was finally let me. But there was a motorcycle back there, and I was pretending to ride the motorcycle. And at one point I tried to go get off of it. And when I went to get off, we hit a bump, and it threw me from the back of the truck.
The accident scalped me, fractured my skull, and then it also severed the nerves in my spine that connected to my right arm. But that injury, they life-flighted me to Salt Lake, kind of fixed all the bleeding and all the head trauma. And then they realized that my arm was not responding to my nervous system. So I had what we refer to as a dead arm until I was 16, just kind of hang there, and it had atrophied. so it was smaller than my other arm. And so, by the time I was a sophomore in high school, and I injured it pretty seriously, I asked my mom if I could have it amputated. So that’s how I am now; I’m a right arm amputee.
It impacted my life in a lot of ways, but I’ve learned a lot of lessons through it as well. And then obviously, It’s what led to the article being written so that I could meet Carlie. And also, a lot of people, I think it gives a lot of people hope to see somebody different, because I think we all struggle with our own things, whether you can see them or not. So I think it helps people to realize, “Hey, we can see his struggles. He seems to be doing just fine.” So even though people can’t see my challenges or my difficulties, I can do fine too. We can all be OK.
So, I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, and I think about what my life would have been like without the injury, But obviously, that wasn’t part of the plan, and I’m grateful for the lessons learned.
10:26
Jon Ryan Jensen: I mean, I think you sell yourself short a little bit, and maybe Carlie feels the same way. I’m watching her facial expressions too, like, man, yeah, I knew you were going to say it that way, right? But in the New Era, they’re not just looking for somebody who doesn’t have an arm to write a story about.
And so it’s really the way you did overcome the situation that you were in. Because, man, I grew up here in Utah, and I can tell you that I remember seeing the TV stations who featured you, and I remember watching you one day on the news catch a baseball, pop the ball up, drop the glove, catch the ball, throw it to first base. And I’m thinking, “How? I can’t do that with two hands.”
And this dude’s flop and drop and throw, and it was cool, man, it was. It was awesome to see you doing that. So, much respect to you for deciding you were going to keep going after the things that you enjoyed, and I watched you hit three pointers and in high school basketball, too. And, I shot with two hands, despite what my coach taught me from the three-point line.
11:29
Porter Ellett: It’s actually mechanically more correct to shoot with one hand. So I had some people say — it was so funny, because once you get good at shooting, they’ll say, “Oh man, well, it’s cheating. And he shoots with one hand. He’s got perfect form, all right.”
11:46
Jon Ryan Jensen: Well, you did well. And I think that perseverance and that decision-making of “Look, but this doesn’t matter. I’m still going to go for the things that I love” speaks volumes about you. And, Carlie, it didn’t deter you from dating him, which I think says a lot about you.
Did you have people in your life who said, “Is this what you’re going for? Is this your ideal?” And how did you work through that?
12:09
Carlie Ellett: Oh yeah, pretty much everybody, I would say, was kind of a little bit hesitant. Not my grandpa. My grandpa knew from Day 1.
Porter Ellett: He was all in.
Carlie Ellett: Yeah, Grandpa Gail knew. He was bought in. But yeah, there were people who definitely cared about me. So it was all out of love, but yeah, like, “Are you sure? How is he going to provide?” They had questions, because it’s not super common to marry somebody who has a physical handicap. So yeah, there were definitely concerns, and people expressed them.
But that’s when you have to trust the inspiration you’ve been given from the Spirit. I knew he was a good person, and I knew he was the right person for me. So I just had to trust that, which kind of has been a theme, I would say, throughout our whole marriage and our journey through the NFL. So I was never worried about it, but maybe I was just young and naive too.
13:09
Porter Ellett: Well, and I get that too. It’s one of those things that — I think there’s certain things when you marry people or whatever, you have to realize that’s not going to go away. Like, “Hey, they have this problem,” or “They struggle with this,” it may or may not go away. And for me, it was pretty obvious, like, “Hey, 50 years from now, he’s still going to have one arm. It’s not something he’s going to get over.
So I do appreciate people that cared about her, too, and was like, “Hey, like, just so you know, this doesn’t go away.” And I think that’s important. It’s important to be a realist about things. When I went on my mission before I left, my father, I remember he pulled me aside the day before I left, and he kind of said, “You’re going on a mission because you want to go on a mission.” And I was like, “Yeah, that’s why I’m going.” And he said, “I just want you to make sure that you are going because you want to go. I’m not making you go. No one’s making you go. This is what you want.
And I think that that’s important to realize that in life. And I think with Carlie, that was like, “Hey, you know you’re doing this. This is what you’re doing.” And I think that that’s fair. Every one of us should have that conversation with ourselves. We got into the NFL when we had people tell us, “It’s crazy hours, it’s this, it’s this, are you sure you want to do that?” And that was probably one of the best things anyone could have done for us.
Carlie Ellett: Far more people questioned that than me marrying a one-armed guy.
14:37
Jon Ryan Jensen: There’s a transition there. The two of you, you get married, and Porter, at that point in time, you weren’t working in the NFL. If I recall correctly, you were working in the financial industry.
And I imagine that people were probably pretty supportive of that, because that seems like the far more stable place to be.
Carlie Ellett: We weren’t even there yet. When we got married, we were in school, and we had nothing, and we had no plan.
Porter Ellett: Yeah, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And then I kind of got lucky. I got unlucky and lucky, because we were all ready to go, I was ready to graduate, and, “All right, here we go.” And then I failed a class at BYU.
Carlie Ellett: Shout out Professor Kearl.
Porter Ellett: Professor Kearl got me. He got me. So I had to go back a semester, and when I went back that semester, I got a job in the BYU equipment room for football. And I fell in love with football. That was my first intimate contact with football, because I didn’t play. I loved it. I watched it on TV, just like everybody else. I didn’t play.
15:36
Jon Ryan Jensen: But that wasn’t part of your high school experience, right?
Porter Ellett: The competitive environment totally was, like oh, this is what I live for, is competition and being a part of this. But then the selflessness of a football team is something bold. Once you see it, you’re like, “Oh, gotta get it now, you know.” So I fell in love with it there, and then I ended up getting lucky. I think I got lucky and got a job at Goldman Sachs. Very fortunate to get a job there.
And I just figured I’ll coach my kids teams or high school, you know, whatever — which I was doing. I was coaching some high school basketball and stuff, and going to work. And I was working like, 90 hours a week and commuting from Orem to Salt Lake. It was a lot. It was a grind, and Carlie could tell that I wasn’t super fulfilled in what I was doing. So we decided to switch it off.
Carlie Ellett: Thank goodness.
16:29
Jon Ryan Jensen: So, that part of the conversation, though, I’m really interested in, because how couples counsel together, how they work together to make decisions like that that affect your trajectory. The two of you get married, you’re married in the temple, you’re at BYU, you’re studying together, and you’re trying to build as President Russell M. Nelson talks about some spiritual momentum together.
Can you talk me through a little bit of that process? How did that conversation go between the two of you to say, “Is this the right place?” And then “What are we doing in making this transition?”
17:03
Carlie Ellett: I could tell for a few weeks that while Goldman Sachs was a blessing, it was not going to be for us, at least not for Porter, for the next 40-50 years, or however long he chose to work. And I recalled a moment while he was working in the BYU equipment room. I don’t think a lot of people know this, but teams go home right after the games. So if there’s an away game, they fly home right after that. And when you fly home, there’s a lot of dirty laundry that has to get done. And that was Porter’s job. He had to go in, and it would be like 2 a.m. Sunday morning, he would be at the BYU equipment room doing the laundry.
And I remember one day he had spent hours there doing the laundry, rolled into the house, changed into his suit, and we were going to head to church. And I asked him, “Hey, how was work?” And he said, “One day I’m going to be in a locker room and someone’s going to do this for me.” And I was like, “OK.” I always saw the potential in Porter. I can’t say I predicted five Super Bowl appearances and three Super Bowls in the NFL, I can’t say I predicted that. But when he says something like that, I knew in that moment, “OK, that’s going to happen for him someday. I don’t know how, because he’s not even on that path, but it’s going to happen.”
And so I’d been mulling how it’s going to go about it for a few days, and I was driving home from work, and I thought, “We should just go for it.” We were struggling with infertility, so we didn’t have kids, we didn’t own a home, we literally had no responsibilities. It was just he and I. So if there’s any time to go after whatever it is you want to go after, that is an ideal time to do it. We’re young. We have our whole lives ahead of us.
So when I got home that day and he got home, we were sitting having dinner, and I just asked him, “What do you think about when you have nothing else you have to think about?” which is only a question a woman can ask a man, because women are always thinking about something and having to think about something. But men, not so much — we love them — but not as much. And he said, “Well, it’s sports.” And I’m like, “OK, well, people work in sports. We can get into sports. Let’s just figure out a way to do it.
So then we spent the next several weeks doing our own research, because we are not connected in the sports world. I don’t know if people realize that either; there’s only really two ways to coach at the level Porter’s coaching, and that’s: one, you played at a high level. Most of them are in the pros, but a lot of guys, like high D1, big-time schools, or you are related to somebody who is already coaching, and that’s kind of the only two avenues, and we don’t fall in either of those camps.
So I was like, “OK, there has to be another way if this is meant to be.” And so we kind of did a little digging and found, “OK, we’ve got to network, is the first thing we’ve got to do.” One of the best ways you can network is school. School is a great way to network. And so we found these sports management programs. And their own at the time, I don’t know what it is now, but they’re only 40 in the country. And so we applied to several of them, and our top choice was San Francisco, because their network, their alum, was tied to all the teams we were fans of, like we got engaged at AT&T ballpark, where the San Francisco Giants play. And I’m from there, so I wanted to go back.
20:34
Jon Ryan Jensen: Which I would like to know: I did not hold this against you. I’m a huge Dodger fan.
Carlie Ellett: Our best friends from BYU, Kate and Zach Ward, are Dodger fans, and we still love them.
Porter Ellett: Coach Zeeds is a Dodgers fan.
Jon Ryan Jensen: Proof that we can all overcome our challenges together.
Carlie Ellett: Porter just talked about how you don’t overcome all of the —
21:11
Jon Ryan Jensen: All right, sorry to interrupt. So you’re so you’re in San Francisco, you’ve got those connections to the place.
Carlie Ellett: When he got into the sports management program at San Francisco, we didn’t even discuss it. I went and paid the deposit for him to start at school there that fall. And then we actually found out. While we were visiting my family, for some reason, we were in California when he found out about it. And when we got home, Porter was like, “I think we should probably go to the temple and pray about it, just to make sure.” I’m like, “Sure that’s fine.” I’m so confident this is the right thing for us. And I remember sitting in the temple session just pleading, “OK, Heavenly Father, do what you got to do. Confirm to him this is where we’re supposed to go, because this is clearly where we’re supposed to go.”
And I just remember sitting there and feeling right away, “No, it’s not. That’s not where you’re supposed to go.” And there was this back and forth, like, “Well, are you sure? Because I feel pretty good about this,” and it wasn’t. I think we sat down in the celestial room, and we both, I think we said it at the same time, like, “We’re not supposed to go to San Francisco.” And we both felt that Baylor University was actually where He wanted us to go, which is funny, because that is a Baptist University, and we are not Baptist. So that is how we ended up at Baylor, ironically.
22:32
Porter Ellett: And I went down after we had kind of felt that way. The reason Baylor came to mind is because they did have a sports management program, one. I was reading a book about the football program, and I was like, “Man, it’s really special. There’s something special going on down there at Baylor.” And then I went down there after we went to the temple and thought about it. I went down and just checked out the campus. But I remember calling her and being like, “Yeah, this is where we’re supposed to be.”
So we ended up down in Waco, Texas, at Baylor University I remember I went into Goldman Sachs, and we had a team meeting or whatever, and they were more like, “Hey, Porter’s leaving. He’s going to go back to school. He’s going to get a master’s degree.” And it was just automatically assumed MBA, like, “Hey, you’re getting an MBA.” So he said, “Where are you going?” And I said Baylor in front of everybody, and you’re like, “You’re getting your MBA?” And I was like, “No, sports management.” And you could kind of feel the whole room be like, “OK, what are you doing?” And then we did catch a lot of grief for that. A lot of people questioned that decision as well. Like, “You’re leaving a great job to go do what?”
23:41
Carlie Ellett: I’ve had to make a few tough phone calls to my dad in my life. The first one was, “Hey Dad, I’m dating a guy with one arm. I think I might end up marrying him.” The second was, “Hey Dad, we’re quitting this Goldman Sachs great career path, and we’re going to pursue this coaching thing.” So, he trusted me, but he had some follow-up questions.
Porter Ellett: Which I would too. I would too. So, we ended up at Baylor in Waco, Texas. And it was probably, honestly, we had to live separate for a few months because she was finishing up her job in Utah, and I had to go down to start. But it was probably the best thing that ever happened to our marriage, was going to Waco, Texas. We got away from family. All we had was each other. We had done well financially, but Baylor, it was an expensive school, and I didn’t have a scholarship when I first got there. I didn’t have a GA position and stuff. Our date nights a lot of times was we’d borrow a key to the church and just go play basketball together, and honestly, it was the most fun we ever had in our marriage. We have a lot of fun now, but up to that point, it was probably the funnest we ever had, the funnest times we ever had together.
Carlie Ellett: The first counselor in our word, Brother Jensen, would have to meet us at the church.
Porter Ellett: To open it up. “What are you guys doing? We’re just going to play in here.
Carlie Ellett: A couple times, he stuck around for date night.
Porter Ellett: Yeah, he did. He’s a pretty good shot too. Great form.
25:08
Carlie Ellett: What’s funny — and Carter didn’t really talk about it — is that we literally, the big draw to Baylor was to learn specifically what was going on in that football program at the time. And it was a big leap of faith, and we really had to trust our answer to go to Baylor, because on paper, it didn’t make sense. Going to San Francisco made all the sense in the world. And then we got there, and a year into it, a huge scandal breaks out.
25:37
Porter Ellett: Not even a year. It was like two months, because I tried to get on with the football program, and I couldn’t. They didn’t have any open positions.
Carlie Ellett: And he was trying, like, knocking on people’s doors.
Porter Ellett: Kellie, the athletic director and the head coach. But I couldn’t get in. And then it ended up being a huge blessing because of the scandal that happened there. Which goes to show you, again, God’s in the details of our lives. Because I, when one coach called me about the job with the Chiefs, one of the very last things he said was, “Wait, you weren’t on the coaching staff.” And I was like, “No, I tried to be but I couldn’t.”
So I ended up doing equipment — or not equipment, sorry, operations — for the facilities. So I worked at McLane Stadium, which is an incredible stadium, and I worked with great people there, but I loved it, loved Waco. I loved what I got to do eventually. And then the teachers down there, the professors, are still some of my favorite people in the world, so it was incredible to be there.
Carlie Ellett: They would quote the Brethren in their presentations at school.
26:46
Jon Ryan Jensen: So, an unexpected location, and not the super clean, clear path that maybe you would have hoped for, but you did get what you needed out of it, and all of that is the precursor to you ending up in the NFL.
But even that took some unique help as well. How did that work out?
27:07
Carlie Ellett: So, my brother was getting married in 2016, and his wife, Rachel, is from Missouri, and so they were getting married in the Kansas City temple in December. Don’t necessarily recommend that timing, but we’re super grateful they got married there when they did. And we were here for the weekend. And Porter, I don’t think we’ve mentioned Devin Woodhouse yet. Devin Woodhouse was one of Porter’s best friends during our time at BYU. They were — were you companions at the MTC?
Porter Ellett: We just both taught Spanish at the MTC. We worked different shifts, but they would overlap sometimes, so we would always meet and talk together. We got real close.
27:50
Carlie Ellett: And he was dating a girl named Drew whom we loved. We had no idea like who she was or where she came from. It took a couple double dates before we found out Drew is actually Drew Ann Reid, named after her father, Andrew Reid. So her and Dev got married, and they stayed in contact, Porter and Devin. And Devin was an intern for the Chiefs working; he’s a strength coach now with the Chargers, but at the time, he was an intern. And so when we came out for the wedding, he hooked up with Porter, and you went over to the facility one day.
Porter Ellett: Yeah, you gave me a tour of the practice facility one day. And then we went to a game that week. And after the game, we went down to this room. It was called the family room, and we were just waiting after the game, we were sitting there. And then Tammy Reid came and sat by us, and we were just kind of joking around, having a good time enjoying each other’s company. And then Devin walked in. We talked for a little bit, and then he said, “Hey, what are you guys doing?” And we were like, “Well, nothing.” So he’s like, “Well, just come out to the parking lot and then follow me.”
So we followed him, and then we ended up at Coach Reid’s house. So we talked for a while, and Devin’s wife, Drew, she kind of did this mock interview where she’s like, “What are you doing? Where do you want to be? What are you studying?” And then he ended up eavesdropping at the end of the night. I just said, “Hey, Coach, I’d pay money if you would let me follow you around. I just, whatever.” He said, “Well, just reach out to me at the end of the season, or Devin, and we’ll see what we can do.”
So, the season ended, and I reached out to him, and then he ended up calling me and left a message because I was in a meeting, but I called him back and he actually had a position open up. And he said, “You’ll go everywhere I go. You’ll be my assistant. You’ll be my right-hand man.” And he’s like, “What do you think of that?” And after, he paused for a second, I was like, “All right, sounds great to me, as long as you’re OK with your right-hand man not having a right hand. And he thought that was hilarious. So he laughed for a while, and then he goes, “Well, you’ll be my left-hand man, then.” So, since then, he’s always introduced me as his left-hand man. But extremely blessed and fortunate to know who we know and be able to — Devin had no reason, really.
Carlie Ellett: He wasn’t going to gain anything in helping Porter.
Porter Ellett: Yeah, he’s a true friend, a great person, for what he did for us. So still very grateful for Devin.
30:20
Carlie Ellett: And then for us, just to end up — I don’t know if people know this, necessarily, but Coach Reid only has one brother, and his one brother only has one arm. There’s 32 head coaches in the NFL, and we got the one who has a brother with one arm? He’s the only guy who would have looked at Porter and not seen it as this negative thing and taken a chance on him. I don’t know that there is any other coach that would have had that courage to do that.
30:49
Porter Ellett: And I think Tammy Reid, too, had a lot. He’s told me that before, that Tammy said, “Well, you want to hire him, hire him.” So we owe Tammy Reid a lot, and Devin Woodhouse a lot. We owe a lot of people a lot for where we’re at. And I mean, that’s no secret to us. I try to make those people proud, and I try to make them feel like they made a good call taking a risk on me. But then we sacrifice for it. We try to do our best. Carlie takes on a lot of work so that I can you know, hopefully live up to those expectations.
31:27
Jon Ryan Jensen: Yeah, I listened to the two of you, and it doesn’t actually sound like following the Spirit has been super hard. I don’t know if you’re just making it easier than it was.
Carlie Ellett: No, in the moments, it was hard to see lights at the end of the tunnel. We had moved all the way from Utah to Texas, and we can’t get a job in football. And it’s like, “What the heck?” And then the football program blows up, and it’s like, “Why did He guide us to go here?” We’re looking at what’s happening to these people in San Francisco, and it’s like, “We made the wrong decision.” And we didn’t have many prospects. A year and a half into schooling there in terms of a job afterwards and we were expecting our first child at the time, and it was like, “What have we done?”
And it’s really easy to now look back and be like, “Oh yeah, there was God in that moment.” But it was a huge blessing that he, one, kept us from getting a job within the football organization, because then we didn’t get blackballed. And then I think you, through the jobs you worked, I think it’s made you a better — not necessarily a better coach, but I think you treat people within the organization differently because you’ve been where they’ve been, kind of a thing. You’ve been in the equipment room, you’ve worked for the stadium, like school of hard knocks, kind of.
And then when he did get the job in Kansas City, he got hired right before the Super Bowl. So this is February, and he still had a couple months — three months, actually, I think — before he graduated. And if we had gone to a proven program like San Francisco, I don’t know that they would have done this, but Baylor bent over backwards to help Porter graduate still, because he he literally got the job on a Friday, and he moved up here to Kansas City on a Sunday, so he went to all of his professors and the dean on Friday afternoon, and they all came up with a plan and how to get in the lectures, still provide online school. I mean, it’s not like this platform was in place and there was online schooling available. They built it out for Porter and took the time out of their own days to teach you and go over assignments with you. So that was a struggle, too, those few months when he was working 130 hours with the Chiefs and then finishing up his master’s with a pregnant wife. So yeah, that was tough.
33:55
Porter Ellett: Well, and when Coach Reid hired me, I had said, “Well, I’ll still finish my master’s.” And he was like, “Oh.” It was just one of those things where, like, I was super grateful for it. And I mean, in my patriarchal blessing, it tells me to take advantage of every educational opportunity I get. And to Carlie’s point, I think those struggles that I went through on the way, they helped me every day, as far as she said, “I understand what it’s like to do the laundry and to fold towels and fold socks. I understand what it’s like to pick up trash at the facility; I did it. I did all those things. I know what it’s like.”
And then when I got here, when I was Coach Reid’s assistant, it was the same thing. You do all the stuff that no one else wants to do. So I’m grateful for that. And all you find joy in in the struggle. I think that’s been one of our better gifts as a couple. Like I said we talked about all the fun we had in Waco, but it was a challenging time for us. It was not easy. It wasn’t an easy time. But it was the best time for us, and we found joy in the journey and in the moments there together. And it’s been the same way with our marriage here. There’s all sorts of strains on our married life still, but you find joy in those struggles and those challenges, and you go through it together.
35:18
Jon Ryan Jensen: So, right now, like Carlie said, you look backwards, and you can say, “Yeah, this is obviously where we were supposed to be.” You’ve had professional success that has included multiple Super Bowl wins as a coach. And I’ve heard some of the players talk about you, and it seems like they don’t see a physical disability first. They talk about you as a coach and how talented you are and how kind you are. And frequently they say similar things about Coach Andy Reid.
Recently, one of the play-by-play commentators for the Chiefs was talking about a video series that has come out on the Chiefs from the past season and talked about Coach Reid as a father figure to the players.
What kind of impact has it had for the two of you spiritually to have kind of a spiritual mentor relationship coach and sister Reid?
Carlie Ellett: You go first.
36:20
Porter Ellett: I think it’s just really valuable as far as showing that the gospel is a priority in the world that we live in. And when I first got hired, Coach Reid talked to me at length about, “Hey, this world we live in, it’s a fantasy world. This NFL world, this is not real life.” We fly on private planes, or chartered planes. We go to stadiums where everyone yells our name. We get meals catered to us. So he’s like, so it’s important that you stay humble and you remember who we are.
And I remember thinking a lot about that and how it related to the gospel, as far as we’re all sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father; He cares about all of us equally. We’re no more important than anyone else. And then he bought up the importance of, “You need to go home or go back to places where you can remember who you are.” And that’s been really valuable for me, as far as: We go back to the farm in Wayne County and Loa, Utah, every year. And you remember who you are, as far as who I am, who my ancestors are, what’s really important.
And then being a father is awesome. It has kept me incredibly grounded. And I think Coach Reid has talked a lot about that. He’ll say the most humbling thing in his life is being a father,” which he’s had his challenges with that and had his successes, but being a father and being a husband. If you fail at those jobs, you’re miserable. I can feel it if I’m not being a good husband or I’m neglecting time with my children; I’m miserable. Whereas, if we lose a game, or things don’t go well on the field, it’s a different kind of misery, but it’s not the same as if you’re failing at home. So for me to be successful as a coach or away from the home, I have to be successful at home. I have to be a good father, and I need to be a good husband first. And I think Coach echoes a lot of that; when you have things right there, you’re in good shape.
38:30
Carlie Ellett: He’s been a really good example of how to intertwine faith and football too. So I think he’s just an example of putting what truly matters first. But I think Coach’s testimony and faith has been pretty well documented. I don’t know that Tammy’s has. Just so everybody out there knows, Tammy is the head coach of the head coach. He might be the head of the organization, but she’s the neck; she controls which way the head points. And I’ve been really fortunate; my background, I studied journalism in college, and so I’m a big question person. I ask people a lot of questions. Sometimes probably go a little too deep when they shouldn’t. But Tammy doesn’t shy away from any of those things. And the Reids have had really hard things happen, and I’ve asked at length about those things, and they’ve had to do it in a very public manner.
And so we’ve had a number of heart to hearts, and the thing that has pulled them through is their relationship with the Savior and their knowledge of the gospel. They’ve said several times, like on paper, there’s no reason their marriage should even still be intact. In the coaching profession, because of the hours you work, there’s a high rate of divorce. And then when you lose a child, the rate of divorce spikes. And they’ve experienced both of those things at the highest level and have weathered those storms, and that’s because of their faith.
And so it’s been really a blessing for the two of us to be able to look to them, because we’ve had challenges during our time in the NFL as well. And so, at least we have that real life example to look to.
40:11
Porter Ellett: Yeah. Coach and Tammy are really great about their faith. They wear their faith on their sleeve, but by the way they live their lives, too. And Coach is open about his faith and what we believe. When we blessed our son, after we got it done, Coach Reid leaned over to me, and he said, “Well, now that the important stuff’s out of the way, maybe we can go win a football game.” And I just thought that was really cool, like he acknowledged that at the end of the day, this is more important than the game. So, it’s just very special, our relationship with them.
And then even the ability to give each other blessings, if you need a priesthood blessing, “Hey, do you need one?” “Yeah, I need one.” “All right.” “Hey, I need one. Could you give me one?” “Yeah.” That’s really cool, and that’s really unique, and that’s special, and we understand that. The way that he talks about LaVell Edwards and his influence on Coach Reid, the way that I hear him talk about it is so similar to the way that I feel about Coach Reid, as far as a football coach and a mentor goes. So it’s been really cool to be a part of that.
41:20
Jon Ryan Jensen: Now the two of you have three children. And, like you said, it’s tough. Professional sports, and sometimes just professional careers in general, don’t always make it easy to raise a family.
So for the two of you, having seen what you’ve seen from the Reids and from other people around you, are there certain habits or actions that you know, “Hey, if we don’t do this, then we’re going to see a downhill slide”? Are there certain things that the two of you know you have to do in order to keep that strength up as a couple?
41:51
Carlie Ellett: Yeah, on my first wives trip, I sat next to Jennifer Heck, who is the wife of our offensive line coach, Andy Heck, and they are Catholic. And they have four amazing, wildly successful children, a marriage that anybody would buck up to. And I sat and I did the same thing. I grilled her, because it’s like, “OK, I want my family to look like the Heck family one day.”
And one of the pieces of advice she gave me was communicate, having good communication. That’s really vague. And she was like, “No. Andy knew about everything that was going on in our kids’ lives. We had a calendar, he was filled in, he knew when the dentist appointment was. He knew when one of our kids had a baseball game or was giving a presentation in school. He was clued in on all of those things.” And so that was one of the first things I took to heart. We have a very, very detailed, color-coded calendar. Porter-knows-when-the-books-need-to-be-returned-to-the-library level coded calendar. So because they work so much and they don’t have necessarily the quantity of time that other dads have, they need to have that quality of time, and they need to know what’s going on in their kids’ lives in order to be that kind of dad. And so I’m really grateful to Jen Heck for that advice.
And then I would just say that the second thing is — I don’t know, we’ve just always kept the Savior at the center of it. And I feel bad, because when I hear people talk about how hard marriage is, I literally can’t relate. My marriage has never been hard for me. Maybe Porter feels differently. Life has been very, very hard, but being married to Porter has never once been hard for me, which I think is a huge blessing. And so I would encourage anybody who’s out there looking for a partner, find someone who being married to them won’t be hard, but when life gets hard, you can lean on that marriage to get through it.
44:00
Porter Ellett: I think Carlie does a couple things really well. The communication thing is really important. And then on top of that, she says quality time is at a minimum in our house, as far as me being home. But she allows me, and we joke about it, but Disneyland dad. I get to be Disneyland dad when I come home, I get to just be with the kids, and we play, and we wrestle, and we fake fight on the trampoline, and we throw pillows, and we race, and we play baseball. When I’m home, it’s like a race. It’s like a tornado comes through, and then we just kind of put them to bed and pick up afterwards. But to Carlie’s credit, that’s an incredible gift for me and for our children.
I’m reading a book right now, but in there, it talks about a recent study they did where a parent’s hours at work don’t actually correlate with the children and the family’s happiness. It’s the time at home, when they come home, what’s their attitude when they get home is what impacts the family’s attitude. And for me, I’m always excited to come home. I love coming home, and it’s because of the atmosphere that Carlie creates, which is pretty special, which is amazing. Because it’s not easy for her. She’s here all day with the kids, and it would be easy for me to come home and for her to say, “All right, I did an all-day. You need to clean up the house,” or whatever. But she says, “All right, your dad’s home. Go jump on the trampoline.” So we go have a great time together.
And then the other thing that Carlie does incredibly well is, she mentioned it, but keeping the Savior first. I think it’s easy to say, “Well, we pray, we read our scriptures, those things.” It’s like, “Yeah, we do those things.” But when we have a Sunday football game, she goes to church first with the kids. They go to church, and then they come to the game. And sometimes that means they show up in the third quarter or they don’t show up at all. They change in the bathroom at church to go to games; it’s those little things. But she is telling the children, “No, it’s Dad’s job. Dad has a job. It is not your job, and your job is to go to church on Sunday.” And the message is pretty clear: “If dad wasn’t working, he’s here. This is what we do.” So that message is very clear at our house, which I’m very grateful for that sacrifice that she makes.
46:28
Jon Ryan Jensen: Setting those priorities. It sounds very familiar. I’ve heard Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles talk about similar things, managing his career in academia with being a stake president, and how much time do you spend with your kids, and and you’re always trying to find that balance. And that the way the two of you talk about it sounds very similar to the way that he and Sister Susan Bednar talk about navigating that.
46:51
Porter Ellett: A phenomenal talk which I’ll always remember, because of the crazy life that we live, but it’s like a random video on YouTube, and I think he was in Argentina, because they had to translate the answers, he talks about the balance of time, home-life balance and living a balanced life. And his answer is fascinating, because when they ask it, I think they were expecting an answer as far as, “Well, you need to ease up on your job or ease up here.” And instead, he said, “No, that’s a myth. That doesn’t exist.”
He’s like, “So here’s how you live a balanced life: Wherever you are, be there and give it your best there.” And I’ve always thought that was an incredible talk, as far as for me, when I’m at work, be at work and do my very best. When Carlie calls and I’m at work, OK, 10 minutes, I’m only talking to you, I’m putting stuff down. And when I get home, be home. That’s how you live a balanced life.
47:47
Carlie Ellett: So, our son, our oldest, was born here. I was seven months pregnant when Porter got the job here. And Brig was born healthy and happy and the cutest baby you’ve ever seen in your life, as any mom would think. And he suffered a traumatic brain injury at age 2, and then another one at age 4, and has since been diagnosed with autism apraxia. So he is nonverbal. He’s 8 years old. And when I talk about trust, I think about Brigham a lot, because I don’t know how things — I know how things ultimately end for Brig, I know Brig has proved himself, and we’re so blessed to have His Spirit in our home.
But in terms of this life, I don’t know what the future looks like for Brig. He could miraculously one day start speaking. We’ve heard of kids who do that. He could never utter a word to us in his entire life. We just don’t know. And so every day, we have to choose to trust our Father in Heaven, that He knows him, that He knows us as parents, that He’s aware of his struggles and our struggles in rearing him the best way we can. So, yeah, I would say he’s probably the — I wouldn’t say he’s our biggest struggle. That’s not the right word.
Porter Ellett: No, I think understanding the reason behind the challenge is a big struggle for us.
49:15
Carlie Ellett: We had to kind of give up on that. I don’t think we were ever going to learn why it specifically happened to Brigham, because I don’t believe it happened to Brigham. I think it happened for the rest of us to become better people. Because Brig, like I said, has proved himself. But he has made our younger two children infinitely more empathetic and compassionate. It’s so impressive for kids their age. My daughter just started kindergarten, and two days into school, her kindergarten teacher sent home an email saying, “I have never seen a kid so inclusive like Piper has been,” and that stems from having a brother like Brigham. And so, basically, I think the hardest part for me is making sure I’m learning all that my Heavenly Father wants me to learn in rearing him.
50:06
Porter Ellett: Yeah, and it’s hard, it’s challenging. Because for me, to probably kind of mention it, but we struggled with infertility for a while. So you have all these visions of what your son will be or what your child will become, and it’s interesting because it ends up not being what you planned. God’s taught us that all along, throughout our life. It’s not always what you plan. So you struggle with that, and you fight with that every day, “What’s life going to look like for him?”
But it’s interesting because there’s times where I think about, “Oh, well I’m serving Brigham. I’m making sure he’s taken care of, serving, serving, serving.” And then there’s little moments where you realize that the whole time that you’re serving him, he’s actually been serving you, which has been a fun little miracle for me.
51:00
Carlie Ellett: It’s extra tender because we just barely baptized Brig on Sunday, and it was incredible to see, because here’s this boy who’s never uttered a word to a single person, and the font room was entirely full, and then the gym was entire — we had to open up all the partitions in the cultural hall to fit more chairs. And then it got to the point where all of the chairs were filled in there, and it was standing room only in our 8-year-old son’s baptism, who’s never said a word to anybody.
And so I think — I can’t speak for Porter, but he’s been the reason, the biggest reason, I’ve come to know my Savior as well as I have in the last few years. Because the more I spend time around Brig, the more I see how the Savior and Heavenly Father look at us. And there are definitely hard parts about it, but I don’t think I’d trade it for anything.
51:59
Porter Ellett: Yeah, I agree. And the reason I bring that up, about I feel like he’s been serving me the whole time, is because you do, you have moments that are really hard, where you feel alone, completely exhausted or completely broken down. And it’s amazing how he knows, and he’ll just give you a hug or a kiss and just lay by you.
But I think the reason that it’s important that we share that is because obviously, the rates of autism are quite high in the world right now, and nonverbal stuff, it’s all quite high. But I think we need to give them a chance to teach us. And that’s the lessons that I’ve learned from Brigham, are you’re not going to learn those lessons if you’re on your phone all the time, you’re watching TV, you’re not paying attention to somebody, or you don’t take the time to get to know someone. You will never learn those lessons, you will never from Brigham. So the gift of Brigham is given by giving him time to teach you.
So I think that’s the reason we share that. I mean, we don’t feel bad for ourselves, and we don’t feel bad for Brigham. I don’t feel bad for Brigham. He lives.
53:21
Carlie Ellett: He’s living better than us. Brig’s got it figured out.
Porter Ellett: He does. He knows what he’s doing. So, we don’t do it for sympathy or for people to feel bad for us, but I think people need to hear that part of it. Give them a chance, man, just love on them and give them a hug. It’s crazy because they’ll know. They’ll know when you need a hug.
53:47
Jon Ryan Jensen: And it puts a different spin on what you talked about earlier, about coming home and wrestling with them and playing with them as well. Because having those moments and that time with them when you can’t go have a conversation, it’s that engagement with each other that shows the love that you couldn’t do perhaps by phone or a FaceTime call.
Carlie Ellett: Yeah. When we do FaceTime at night during the season, Porter will talk to Piper and Griffin, and then Brig will just look at him and smile. So the quality time is what’s really important, when it comes to him.
Jon Ryan Jensen: I’m sure it pays off to see that smile, though.
Carlie Ellett: Yeah, he’s the best. He got baptized and got up and was just giggling right away. He knew what he had done.
54:34
Porter Ellett: During the confirmation, he giggled every time I said his name, just special.
Jon Ryan Jensen: Well, I know that’s a very personal moment, and I’m grateful that you’d be willing to share that with us on the podcast.
Carlie Ellett: We’ll be thinking about that day for a long time. I think it was really special.
54:53
Jon Ryan Jensen: Well, I appreciate the two of you in the few minutes that you have together right now, as a season is set to begin, for being here with me, and I feel like now’s a good time for us to start to let you get back to each other and your kids.
So, as we do in the Church News podcast, we have a tradition of ending by asking our guests to take the final word, and we ask you the question: What do you know now? So, Porter and Carlie Ellett, what do you know now through the experiences that you’ve had with each other throughout this fascinating life that you’ve lived so far?
55:31
Carlie Ellett: Each year, Coach Reid comes up with a new team saying, team motto. What is it this year?
Porter Ellett: Max out.
Carlie Ellett: Max out. That’s a good one too. But my favorite one of all time was just one word, and it was: Trust. And growing up, my mom quoted her favorite scripture almost to me multiple times daily, Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
And anytime I have a moment just to reflect on our life, I don’t know that there’s a better scripture that kind of describes the journey we’ve been on. We have been at crossroads multiple times, and we’ve gone to our Father in Heaven and been like, “OK, we think we’re going to go this way. What should we do?” And then we’ve trusted that answer. And it wasn’t easy, but it seems like as you trust the process and trust Him and trust the answers He’s given you and trust His plan, it tends to then work out for you. And it works out and blesses your life in a way that you could have never orchestrated on your own.
So I would think, more than anything, what do I know now, it’s the importance of trusting my Father in Heaven, as difficult as it is in the moment to see what it is He sees, but then remembering He is in every detail of my life, of Porter’s life, of our family’s lives and knows what’s best for us.
57:05
Porter Ellett: Yeah, that’s awesome. I think one thing for me — and I don’t know, it’s kind of like a weird thing or a thought — but I think for me now, looking back on our lives, I think it’s important that you own your life. And for me, Carlie and I have this crazy life that we live, this crazy situation that we’ve put ourselves in, but it’s our situation. It’s our home, it’s our children, it’s our decision to do what we do and the way that we do. And it’s OK. And I think when you have that confidence in “No, this is who I am,” it really gives you strength to understand what you can become as well.
You become extremely grateful for a Savior and enjoy it. And so, I’m 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.
58:06
Jon Ryan Jensen: Thank you for listening to the Church News podcast. I’m your host, Church News editor Jon Ryan Jensen. I hope you learned something today about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had your faith in the Savior increase by looking through the Church News window as a living record of the Restoration. Please subscribe, rate and review this podcast so it can be accessible to more people. And if you enjoyed the messages we shared today, please share the podcast with others. Thanks to our guests; to my producer, KellieAnn Halvorsen; and to others who make this podcast possible. Join us every week for a new episode. Find us on your favorite podcasting channels or with other news and updates about the Church on TheChurchNews.com or on the Church News app.
