PITTSBURGH —He may look like it, but DK Metcalf wasn't curated in a lab.
He didn't suck air through a snorkel, buoyed in a tube full of fizzing water while waiting to be dropped on a football field.
The Pittsburgh Steelers ' imposing No. 1 receiver may take on a cyborg-like appearance in his pads, helmet and smoky visor, but he's no science experiment.
Until second grade, when a classmate made things easier on a teacher who kept mispronouncing his name, he wasn't even DK.
He was — and to his father, remains — DeKaylin, Terrence Metcalf 's oldest child.
"People always used to call me, 'Oh, you're Terrence's son,'" DK said after practice at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex on Thursday. "Or Big Cat's son, or Metcalf's son, and (I thought), 'Nah, I got a fuckin' name. My name is DeKaylin Metcalf.'"
Now, the shoe is on the other foot.
"When people call him, 'Oh, you're DK's dad,' I kind of get excited now because he knows what it feels like now," he said. "But he didn't take it the way I did. That's why he's my dad. That's why he's the ultimate person, ultimate human being."
Terrence Metcalf, who helped pave the way on the Chicago Bears ' offensive line from 2002-08, will return to the Windy City this weekend, this time to watch his son play at historic Soldier Field. While the younger Metcalf considers himself a Mississippian through and through, the early chapters of his life were written in the midwest.
DK Metcalf, who arrived in Pittsburgh by way of Seattle in March, has 37 receptions for 551 yards and five touchdowns, all Steelers highs heading into Week 12.
The person and, to an extent, the player who he is today was molded by his father.
"What you see today wasn't what I saw," Terrence Metcalf told Steelers Now over the phone. "But I saw him out-work people. … He got it in his head that, 'If I'm out-working people, I know I got an opportunity.'"
Chicago Bears offensive lineman Terrance Metcalf at training camp on July 27, 2007. — Bearhanded
Every day, Terrence Metcalf's phone rings at 9:15 a.m. His son is always on the other end, on his way to get his usual iced caramel latte with oat milk from Dunkin. Their conversation hardly ever centers around football.
Instead, DK asks what's going on at home in Mississippi. He has eight siblings he keeps tabs on, including a few still in grade school.
It used to be Terrence who was away, albeit for a shorter stretch. A consensus first-team All-American coming out of Ole Miss in 2001 and third-round draft pick by Chicago the following year, he brought his family along for the ride, including a four-year-old DeKaylin.
He already had family in the Chicago area, too, making the transition a little easier. The elder Metcalf grew up in Milwaukee in the early 1980s, rooting for the Bears, in part because Walter Payton was from Mississippi.
During his rookie training camp, which was held at Olivet Nazarene University, about an hour outside of Chicago in Bourbonnais, Ill., he was only away from his recently-relocated family for three weeks.
To the younger Metcalf, it felt like a lifetime. When he could finally see his dad again, he raced to him on the field after a practice to be hoisted.
Chicago Bears kick returner Devin Hester on July 31, 2008. — Katherine Raz
"When my kids first came down to training camp and them getting to experience the entire NFL family experience, I think that was the first fond memory of him being able to run out on the field and see me after so many weeks of being away from home," Terrence said. "The excitement just to see daddy again was one of my fondest moments."
DK Metcalf's memories of that time period are scattered. He remembers the cold winter weather and going to Terrence's games, Halas Hall and training camps. Staying in dorms during training camp for the first time this summer at St. Vincent College, DK already had an idea of what was in store.
"Just the every day grind of having to get up, even when you don't want to," Metcalf said. "Those conversations (we had), he knows exactly what I'm going through, so just to have someone to share those moments with, I think, it makes me feel better. Because I'm not constantly thinking or bearing so much weight that this game causes."
That's a large part of the reason why Terrence Metcalf uprooted his family and planted it in Illinois. Away from the field, he brought them to hibachi, city food festivals and even to a Chicago Bulls game in a limousine. Living in the suburbs, the Metcalfs weren't far from a local Six Flags theme park.
"It was a fun time just being a kid whose dad played in the NFL," DK Metcalf said.
Pittsburgh Steelers WR DK Metcalf during Sunday's win over the Indianapolis Colts. Ed Thompson/Steelers Now
Terrence emphasized the importance of letting young DeKaylin be a kid. He didn't nudge his son toward the sport he starred in.
Still, DK picked up weightlifting — at five years old — and trained, just as a way to spend time with his father, who never skipped a workout day, even in the offseason. As a seventh-grader, after moving back to Mississippi, the younger Metcalf fixed his sights on following in the elder's footsteps.
Terrence would regularly out-race his middle-school-aged son in sprints or up stadium stairs, then the latter would hop in the passenger seat of the car with his eyebrows furrowed, pissed off, with nothing to say. On the drive home, in the Mississippi heat, Terrence would crank the heater up and keep the windows sealed shut in an effort to teach DK a soggy lesson about mental fortitude.
He never refused a workout while clinging to every piece of advice he was offered.
"Work hard, keep God first and treat everybody with respect," DK said, recounting the three main points Terrence instilled in him. "Always making somebody feel like a person because I watched my dad do it his whole life. … I've always admired that about him."
Still, DK was always the fastest and most athletic kid around. His father, once the top-rated recruit in the Magnolia State, reminded him that, when it came to getting to the next level, it wasn't just about competing with contemporaries in his own state. There were talented players outside its borders, too.
"His whole goal was just to beat me doing everything," Terrence said. "That's running, that's jumping, that's finishing — and he wouldn't let me see him tire out."
Castles aren't built all at once, DK will tell you. Early-morning workouts became commonplace. He wound up ditching basketball, his first sport, as a senior at Oxford High School.
"There's always someone working harder than you," DK said.
His hard work paid off. Standing 6-foot-4 and tipping the scale at nearly 230 pounds, the younger Metcalf is a physical specimen. He looks at home next to the Steelers' offensive tackles, Broderick Jones and Troy Fautanu .
"You have to be blessed with the height," Terrence said. "You have to blessed with the weight. You have to be blessed with the size, the speed, the agility. … All of that stuff, that's out of your control. But the way you work, the way you train, the way you look at the game, the way you see people is the most important thing."
Terrence's college roommate nicknamed DK "Lil' Muscle" when he was a toddler.
"He was just a really, really thick kid for a long time," Terrence said.
Everyone focuses on DK's hulking physique, sprinter's speed and athletic gifts. His mother, Tonya, cared more about how he was doing in the classroom.
"My mom was a soldier with her taking care of me and three girls, all while my dad was playing — held down the house, always cooked for us, made sure we were prepared for school and she damn sure was gonna beat my ass if our grades weren't right," DK said. "(My dad) had the athlete part, but she had the student. So I was a great student-athlete."
Without tucking away his homework, DK wasn't allowed to hop on his PlayStation. Terrence bought him Madden each year, but his son didn't hurry to see his dad's virtual self.
"Oh, hell nah. I (was) going to create my own player," DK said. "I'm playing (as) myself. You can't do much with an O-lineman."
That's not to say he's self-absorbed. His father felt like keeping his quarterback upright was "just like a wide receiver catching 20 touchdowns in a season."
"People know you by the fruits of your labor," Terrence said. "For him to be what he was growing to be, it did nothing but make me proud because I knew that I was on the right track and I was doing things the right way. … You never start training your child to make him less than you. And so, as a father, and each time that he would rise to the occasion — and even best me at the occasion — all it did was allow me to move to the next phase, and allowed him to grow that much more into himself.
"It's a blessing to see my son excel beyond my reach. I think that should be every father's dream."
DK lets it be known that he remains true to himself no matter what people say about him, but agrees with his father that it's good to be remembered in the right way.
"They do judge me a lot by how I play on the field," DK said. "That's the mask that I put on. That's the helmet that I wear. That's a time for me (in which) I can go out and hit someone for free and not get in trouble for it. … That's the way I look at football. It's a violent sport, it's a barbarian (sport), it's a warrior sport.
"That's the great part about any great football player or any good football player or any football player, in general. They know how to flip the switch on and off. I like the part where they say, 'Damn, he's a really nice guy off the field.'"
Seattle Seahawks wide receiver DK Metcalf (14) gets past Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Patrick Peterson (20) in the first half of an NFL football game Sunday, Dec. 31, 2023, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
This won't be DK's first homecoming of sorts. He visited Soldier Field last season, in his second-to-last game in a Seattle Seahawks uniform. His team won 6-3, and he notched three grabs for 42 yards. He didn't score, however.
DK will be aiming to find the end zone this time around. It doesn't matter to him if he reels in a strike from Aaron Rodgers , who's dealing with a fractured left wrist, or backup Mason Rudolph .
"I can't wait until they say it (on the public address system)," Terrence said. "I'll be there. … I enjoy him catching a pass and getting upfield. I just enjoy being at Soldier Field and watching him play."
Soldier Field in Chicago on Nov. 25, 2011. — John Picken
The roles will be reversed from when DK was cheering for his father, "Big Cat" Williams, Olin Kreutz, Brian Urlacher, Ted Washington, Phillip Daniels, Alex Brown, Tommie Harris and Bobby Gray. The younger Metcalf even held the George Halas Trophy in the Bears' locker room after they beat the New Orleans Saints in the 2006 NFC Championship game.
"Just going there and playing, the history that's been played in Soldier Field, me sitting in the stands watching my dad play or Devin Hester return … and then me being on that same field where my pops played, it's a great experience," DK said.
He didn't say what it would mean for him to catch a touchdown in his father's old digs. Instead, he spoke like an offensive lineman's son.
"O-linemen don't get as much credit as they should," DK said.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now : How His Father's Time with the Bears Helped Mold DK Metcalf
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