Former Ravens Pro Bowler Shares Thoughtful Reflection on Life Outside of Football

Free agent outside linebacker Kyle Van Noy doesn't know where he'll be playing yet for the 2026 season, but he knows what is most important in his life is family.

While the 12-year veteran spent a fourth of his career with the Baltimore Ravens from 2023-25, racking up 23.5 sacks, including the first double-digit campaign and getting the first Pro Bowl nod, he has spent most of his life living with a void and a deep sense of abandonment and rejection.

The 35-year-old recently had a piece published in 'The Players' Tribune,' where, in his own words and not via proxy or secondary media source, he opened up about what it was like finding out he was put up for adoption as a newborn in the early 1990s and learning who his biological parents are three decades later.

"There will always be a part of me that feels like I don’t belong, if that makes sense," Van Noy wrote. "Like I do and I don’t, as weird as that sounds. So even in that supportive setting I grew up in, with a family that loves me, there’s still this feeling of abandonment, of something being missing for me, of not fully belonging. I feel like that’s always around for me. And it always has been. Now, mind you, it’s in the background. It’s not something that I think about every day, or all the time. It just pops into my mind every once in a while. It’s just kind of…. lurking."

Even though the Van Noy family welcomed him with open arms and loved him like he was one of their own, it was made clear to him at an early age that he wasn't.

"We didn’t talk much about it as a family early on, but I just knew," Van Noy wrote. "I was raised in a huge family, with lots of cousins. And we were always getting together on the weekends, holidays, you name it. It wasn’t long before I realized that I didn’t look like any of the cousins I was running around with in the yard. I have a brother who’s about six-foot-eight, this super lanky white guy. I love him to death, but like … we look nothing alike."

Needing to find the truth for selfless reasons

New England Patriots outside linebacker Kyle Van Noy (53) kisses his wife Marissa Powell after defeating the Atlanta Falcons. — Feb 5, 2017; Houston, TX, USA; New England Patriots outside linebacker Kyle Van Noy (53) kisses his wife Marissa Powell after defeating the Atlanta Falcons during Super Bowl LI at NRG Stadium. Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Van Noy's adoption records were closed, with no information about his biological parents having been disclosed, and it wasn't until he and his wife had started building a family of their own that he even began searching.

In 2019, during his first stint with the New England Patriots, he and his wife had their first child, and while it was an "amazing, emotional, life-changing experience," afterwards, he was once again reminded of the void that existed within him. Van Noy was bombarded with questions from doctors about his biological family's history so that they'd know which, if any, health issues to test for and monitor in their newborn, but he couldn't provide anything because he knew nothing.

"Honestly, that made me feel stupid," Van Noy wrote. "I felt like I was a bad parent for not being able to provide that information, and for not having any medical records at all. Luckily, our son didn’t have any big medical issues, but me not being able to help his doctors by providing family history that could be useful in the future … that always stuck with me."

A year later, he signed up with a genetic-testing service after being inspired by his father-in-law, who was also adopted, and it worked out so well for him that he ended up developing a relationship with his biological mother and a sister he never knew he had.

"I figured I’d give it a try and see how it went," Van Noy wrote. "When I sat down and dug into the details that came back, I found out that I had paired with a sibling. I was given all the information for this person, along with details on a bunch of cousins who I was also related to from my biological parents."

While he didn't immediately do anything with the information he was initially given, the time to take action came in 2021 when his wife told him that a new member of their family was on the way.

"I needed to know about my family background. For our children’s sake," Van Noy wrote. "It was like: If this is something that could help ensure my kids stay healthy throughout their lives, or is something that they’d want to have available to them as they grow up, then I’m doing it. No matter how uncomfortable things may get."

It only took the investigator three days to yield the results that he thought might take months to collect.

"I received something back from the investigator so fast that I hadn’t even gotten the chance to save their name in my phone yet," Van Noy wrote. "But it turned out that the person I hired found one of my parents almost immediately. So they went to where this person lived and made some videos of them going about their day. The investigator had put together a packet with tons of information on this person, as well as others he had found out about — biographical details, various documents, photos, videos. Everything was organized and logged."

Digging deeper

The birth of their daughter Giavanna came and went without a hitch, but Van Noy still hadn't decided on what he wanted to do with the newfound mountain of information about people he spent a lot of his life wondering about.

"Not to be too dramatic, but I think something I’ve always felt from a very young age, but that I’ve always had a hard time talking about is … betrayal," Van Noy wrote. "And I think that’s at least some of what I was struggling with while going through those materials. Even though I’m happy, and my family situation is really positive and loving, there’s still a feeling of betrayal and rejection deep down.

"Getting this new information just put all of that even more front and center. Literally one of the things that I found out that day was that I had biological siblings who weren’t put up for adoption … babies who were kept, in other words, while I was given away. And with something like that, at least for me, it’s like: Oh, OK, so you held on to THEM, but I was so meaningless that you could just get rid of me no problem?!?!?"

The second batch of information that the investigator gathered revealed that one of his biological parents was murdered, which, despite never having known this person, hurt him nonetheless.

"For whatever reason, that one hit me the hardest," Van Noy wrote. "Just knowing they were gone. Like gone gone. Forever. Even though I never knew this person, and even though I was pissed about them discarding me, and even though they died a very long time ago … it still hit me super hard. I was going through all these press clippings from local newspapers describing how my parent had been killed, and, I don’t know what to tell you … it just really, really made me sad. It was like: Man, I never got the opportunity. And now I never will."

Without being directly involved personally, his representatives were able to make contact with his one living parent and ascertain the information he was seeking and more.

"I have all the background and ancestry and health information anyone could ever want on my parents and siblings, anything my kids would ever need as they move through life," Van Noy wrote. "There won’t be any gigantic voids for them where they’re kind of left in the dark. I feel like they’ll be fully empowered going forward."

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