Warrick Dunn Lost His Mother at 18. His Program Has Now Helped 252 Single-Parent Families

At 18, Warrick Dunn lost his mother and became the head of his family overnight.

His mother, Betty Smothers, was a corporal with the Baton Rouge Police Department. In January 1993, while working an off-duty security job, she was escorting a businesswoman to make a night bank deposit when they were ambushed. Smothers was killed in the line of duty. She was a single mother raising six children, and her goal was to buy a home of her own.

Warrick was the oldest. He had just finished high school. While starting college at Florida State on a football scholarship, he helped raise his five younger siblings, making trips home to Baton Rouge and handling the kind of decisions most teenagers never have to think about. He has spoken openly about how heavy that period was.

On the field, he made it. Dunn went on to a 12-season NFL career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Atlanta Falcons. He was named Offensive Rookie of the Year in 1997 and made three Pro Bowls. Small for a running back, he was known for his speed and his toughness, and he finished his career with more than 10,000 rushing yards.

But the thing he may be best known for began in that same rookie year. In 1997 he started Homes for the Holidays. His mother had always dreamed of owning a home, and she never got there. So he decided to help other single parents do what she could not.

The program helps single parents become first-time homeowners. Families complete homebuyer education, and the program then provides down-payment assistance and delivers a fully furnished house, with food in the pantry, so the family can move straight in. It works with Habitat for Humanity and other partners in cities like Tampa, Atlanta, Baton Rouge and Houston. Dunn often shows up in person to hand over the keys.

In 2004 he received the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award for his work off the field. Years later he became a minority owner of the Atlanta Falcons, and he has kept the charity running long after his playing days ended.

In 2025 the program marked its 250th home celebration. By 2026, it had assisted 252 single-parent families, along with hundreds of children who now grow up in a house their parent owns.

Each of those homeowners gets the thing his mother wanted most and never had the chance to see. A son kept her dream alive, one front door at a time.

Dunn played college football at Florida State under coach Bobby Bowden and was a freshman on the team that won the 1993 national championship, the same year his mother was killed. He later told his full story in his 2008 memoir, Running for My Life. In the book he wrote about the anger and grief he carried for years, and about choosing to meet the man convicted in his mother's case as part of his own healing.

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