As Loretta Amaro-Anderson began her descent from the top of Section 118 in the northwest corner of StubHub Center on Sunday, she was suddenly consumed by fear.

She had sent her 8-year-old son, Joshua, who was attending his first football game, ahead to meet his brother, 14-year-old Brandon, who was in the first row watching players from the Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs warm up an hour and a half before kickoff.

Only Joshua, a second grader at Icef Vista Elementary Academy in Los Angeles, wasn’t there.

“I was coming down the stairs slowly, and the next thing I know, I couldn’t find him,” Loretta said. “I thought he was lost, and I nearly lost it myself.”


Loretta’s phone rang. It was Brandon.

“He said, ‘Where are you, mom?’ and I was like, ‘Where’s Joshua? Where’s Joshua?’” she said. “He said, ‘He’s on the field.’ He’s where?”

Loretta’s heart stopped racing when she saw Joshua, in his No. 99 Joey Bosa jersey, being escorted around the field — shaking hands and talking to coaches and players — by Chris McCain, the Chargers’ 6-foot-5, 236-pound reserve defensive end.

When Loretta arrived at the field level, McCain lifted Joshua over the concrete railing for a joyful reunion with a grateful mother.


“It was absolutely amazing,” said Loretta, a Chargers fan from Los Angeles. “It touches my heart because this is Joshua’s first-ever football game, he’s really nervous, and Chris made it perfect for him. He made it comfortable for him.”

Joshua wasn’t the first kid to accompany McCain on a Sunday stroll, and if the former Cal standout continues his solid play in his first season with the Chargers, there will be plenty more. McCain has three sacks for a loss of 20 yards and three tackles for losses in three games.

McCain, 25, began the ritual when he was a rookie at Miami in 2014 and has done it for all 23 of his NFL games, home and away, for the Dolphins, New Orleans Saints and Chargers.

“I just do it to give back,” said McCain, a Greensboro, N.C., native whose daughter, Malayla, turns 2 in October. “I love kids. I never went to a football game as a kid. I always wanted to, and we could never afford it.


“I always wanted to meet a player, to find a way to shake their hand, and I never could. You never know which kid might feel that way.”

McCain picks his little buddies at random. As soon as he comes out of the tunnel for individual warmups he scans the bleachers for a family with elementary or middle school-aged kids.

“Not high school kids,” McCain said. “They’re too big.”

If the youngster is donning a jersey of a favorite player, McCain will try to get that player’s autograph for the child. He once escorted a brother-sister tandem around the field. In Dallas, he walked with a young boy who only spoke Spanish.


“He kept saying, ‘No English, no English,’” McCain said. “I said, ‘That’s OK, just talk in Spanish.’”

McCain said parents “are really appreciative” of the gesture.

“The only thing I don’t like is when the cameras are in my face and the kids’ faces,” he said. “I’m not doing it for publicity. I don’t want the cameras to be a distraction from what I’m trying to do with the kids.”

Chargers defensive end Chris McCain escorts Joshua Amaro-Anderson, 8, on a tour of the field before a game against the Chiefs at StubHub Center on Sept. 24. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)


If it wasn’t for McCain’s own child, he might not be playing football today. After two seasons (2014-2015) as a seldom-used outside linebacker who mostly played special teams in Miami, McCain endured a whirlwind of transactions in the fall of 2016, when he almost quit.

In a 10-week span from Aug. 30 to Nov. 7, McCain was traded from Miami to New Orleans, waived four times and signed to practice squads three times. He nearly moved back to Northern California to be with Malayla, who lives with her mother.

“I went home [to North Carolina] and started working out and I was like, ‘I can’t keep leaving my daughter,’” McCain said. “I’d rather be with her permanently than to keep doing all this [stuff], me popping in and out of her life. So I was gonna find something else to do.”

On Nov. 23, two days before Thanksgiving, the Chargers offered him a practice-squad spot. He re-signed with the team in January and earned a 53-man roster spot with his strong preseason play.


“Going through everything last year, I almost called it quits,” McCain said. “I really wanted to give up, but I couldn’t because of my daughter. She kept me going.”

McCain is considered undersized for an edge rusher but uses his speed, length and work ethic to his advantage.

He played 20 defensive snaps in a season-opening loss at Denver, recording his first career sack, and 18 defensive snaps in Week 2 against Miami, chasing down quarterback Jay Cutler from behind after a long run for a sack.

“That’s what I do, I run,” McCain said. “It’s like seeing a kid with a toy running from a dog. As long as you have that ball in your hand, you best believe No. 40 is running after you.”


McCain played 15 defensive snaps in Sunday’s loss to the Chiefs and sacked Alex Smith for a loss of nine yards in the second quarter. On the first play of the fourth quarter, he made the correct read on a fake punt and dropped Albert Wilson for a four-yard loss.

“I didn’t know him very well when I got here — he looked like a basketball player playing defensive end,” Chargers coach Anthony Lynn said. “But he’s done an outstanding job. He’s continued to get better and better, and he just makes plays. That’s why you see him on the field so much now.”

McCain appears to be solidifying a role with the Chargers but he knows not to get too comfortable.

“I’m just worrying about today’s practice,” he said. “That’s about it, man. I have to take it one game at a time. I don’t look too far in advance.”


No matter how the season plays out for McCain, he gained some new fans in the Amaro-Anderson family.

“It just makes it personal, it gives you a personal attachment,” Loretta Amaro-Anderson said of McCain’s walk with Joshua. “It shows that they’re invested in the community, and we’re invested in them.”

mike.digiovanna@latimes.com


Follow Mike DiGiovanna on Twitter @MikeDiGiovanna