The 2025 Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza has taken the Indiana University football team to new heights, but the athlete couldn’t have done it without his supportive family by his side.
“My lifelong partner, Alberto, my brother, my closest confidant. Who I trust more than anyone to get through a tough day, a tough game, a tough match, I love you brother,” Fernando said during his Heisman winning speech in December 2025. “Thanks for always giving it to me straight, no matter the circumstances.”
She also called out her family’s “unconditional love” earlier talking to his mother, Elsa, directly at a particularly emotional moment.
“These are the people who built me long before football did,” Fernando said. “Mommy, this is your trophy as much as mine. You’ve always been my biggest fan. You’re my light, you’re my cause, you’re my biggest supporter.”
Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza is looking back on going viral with an emotional postgame interview following his Big 10 Championship win. “It was a genuine raw emotion,” Mendoza, 22, admitted to People in an interview published on Friday, December 12. “Maybe it was a little too much.” After the victory of his Indiana Hoosiers over (…)
She added: “You taught me that toughness doesn’t have to be strong, it can be calm and strong. It’s choosing hope. It’s believing in yourself when the world doesn’t give you much reason. Together, you and I are rewriting what people think is possible.”
Following the 2025 success of the Indiana University Hoosiers football team, which went undefeated to take home the Big Ten Championship for the first time since 1967, fans became interested in quarterback Fernando and his close relationship with his family.
Keep scrolling to find out everything:
Who is Fernando Mendoza’s father?
The UI quarterback’s father, Fernando Mendoza Mr.he was also a collegiate athlete, competing in rowing at Brown University before embarking on a career in medicine. Fernando Mr. is an emergency medicine specialist at Nicklaus Children’s Pediatric Specialist Group in Miami.
Who is Fernando Mendoza’s mother?
in her Players stand letter to Fernando, published in December 2025, Elsa Mendoza revealed that she was a tennis player at the University of Miami. Initially, Elsa hoped her eldest son would follow in her footsteps. However, he wrote that Fernando knew college football was in his future.
Elsa also spoke candidly about her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in the same letter.
“I was diagnosed about 18 years ago, but of course you never knew. You and Alberto were so young, and I was doing well… and most of all I didn’t want you to worry. It seemed like an impossible thing to put on you. On my sweet boys,” she wrote, noting that she was forced to tell Fernando and Alberto after she fell ill with Covid-19. “No years could have prepared me for the tough conversation that ended up being.”
Elsa wrote that Fernando made her feel “seen” even as she underwent MS treatment.
“You have never once treated me like I was shameful, or deficient, or anything other than someone you love and stand by,” she wrote. “And even though my condition has worsened and our lives continue to change around this fact: you manage to make me feel like I’m still every bit of myself.”
Fernando and Alberto Mendoza.
Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesDoes Fernando Mendoza have a brother?
The UI quarterback has two younger brothers. Alberto Mendoza shares the field with his older brother and serves as the Hoosiers’ backup quarterback. Alberto replaced his brother for several games in the 2025 season.
Fernando and Alberto’s younger brother is called Max, who dreams of becoming a sports broadcaster.