RENTON — For Dontae McMillan, the Seahawks’ sudden need to add running backs this week resulted in the opportunity of a lifetime.

“I’ve been waiting for this since I was a kid, since I was 8 years old,” said McMillan, a Seattle native and Chief Sealth High grad of getting signed by the Seahawks to their practice squad on Tuesday. 

McMillan, who played at Weber State and Eastern Michigan and was in camp with the Baltimore Ravens this year before being released in August, got the call earlier this week that the Seahawks wanted to sign him to the practice squad after their attempt to sign veteran Joe Mixon fell through when he failed a physical.

After being released by the Ravens, McMillan returned to the Seattle area, conducting daily workouts that began at 6 a.m. with friend and former UW Husky standout Myles Gaskin and waiting for an NFL team to give him another shot.

When the Seahawks reached out this week for a tryout, McMillan said his initial reaction was “just shocked. But I was happy at the same time.”

Even if he was stunned in the moment that the Seahawks were offering him another NFL chance, he said it was a call he long envisioned might someday arrive.

“I just feel like I was destined to be in this moment,” he said. 

Even if at times, such a moment, when viewed from afar, couldn’t have seemed further away.

As detailed in a 2018 Seattle Times story, McMillan and his twin brother Jalanie were given a shortened life expectancy at birth because of complications resulting from their mother’s alleged drug use. That same story detailed that neither was expected to overcome multiple learning disabilities to even advance to high school.

“I didn’t have my father or my mom in my life,” McMillan said Thursday as he prepared for his second practice as a Seattle Seahawk.

At age 8, the twins were adopted by their paternal grandmother, Vera Jimerson, who McMillan said Thursday “took care of me my whole life.”

It was Jimerson who helped put McMillan on the path to where he is today — wearing a Seahawk No. 25 jersey, once made famous by a player he watched often as a youth, Richard Sherman.

“It’s still mind blowing to me,” McMillan said. “So I’m just going to embrace it and be in the moment.”

He only wishes Jimerson were here to see it. 

She passed away in 2022 after a long fight with liver cancer.

“For me to experience that, it was a heartbroke,” he said of her death. “But at the same time, she knew that I was destined to be here in the NFL. She knew that I was going to be successful. So I’m still going to make her proud every single day.”

If he’s overcome long personal odds to get as far as an NFL practice squad, he has a chance to make some history for his high school.

There are graduates of 172 different Washington high schools who have played at least one regular season NFL game, according to Pro Football Reference. 

Chief Sealth, which has had a spotty football history since opening its doors in 1957, is not one of them. When the McMillan twins led Chief Sealth to a Metro League Sound Division title in 2018 as far as anyone knew it was the first time the school had won the title.

Especially as he rose in athletic stature, McMillan could have chosen to attend a school in the area with a richer football tradition. 

But being able to represent Chief Sealth, McMillan said, makes getting another NFL shot with his hometown team all that much more meaningful.

“It’s an honor to be here and represent my hometown and my community and my last name,” said McMillan, who said he attended a Chief Sealth game last week.

McMillan had listed offers from 247Sports.com from Oregon, Utah State and Sacramento State before signing with Weber State.

“I felt like Weber State, they took me in as a family,” he said.

There, he became close with a player he can happily again call a teammate — Seahawks receiver Rashid Shaheed.

Shaheed was entering his third season at Weber when McMillan arrived and quickly took him under his wing.

“He’s like a big brother to me,” McMillan said. “I remember my freshman year I looked up to him a lot. Just me being here with him is crazy.”

Shaheed said Thursday he quickly gravitated to McMillan “just because I saw his potential. He came to me as a young buck saying that he wanted to play in the NFL.”

Shaheed said he tried to show McMillan “how to prepare and how to be ready for big moments, and he learned very quickly. He was very, very good at Weber. … I’m super excited for him.”

McMillan was the Big Sky Freshman of the Year in the spring season of 2021 and helped lead the Wildcats to the second round of the FCS playoffs in 2022.

After the coach who recruited him, Jay Hill, left for an assistant’s job at BYU, McMillan transferred to Eastern Michigan in 2023 and a chance to play at the FBS level.

That move resulted in a homecoming in 2024 — a game against UW at Husky Stadium — that ended unhappily when he suffered a broken right fibula and was lost for the season.

He recovered from that to play all 12 games for EMU in 2025, rushing for 1,014 yards and finishing 16th in the nation in all-purpose yards per game (115.8), 28th in rushing yards and 33rd in yards per carry (5.73).

He didn’t get drafted last spring but signed as a free agent with the Ravens. 

There, McMillan rushed for 109 yards on 15 carries in the preseason, including a 63-yard run against Washington before being waived at the cutdown to the 53-man roster and becoming a free agent.

If getting released and not claimed was a momentary blow, McMillan said he’s learned that “it’s a business, things change, stuff happens.”

So, he returned home and began the daily workouts with Gaskin, who played in 47 NFL games and gained 1,360 yards before announcing his retirement in August, a career that included four stints on the Seahawks practice squad last season and playing in one game.

“Just training, waiting for a call,” McMillan said.

He hoped one might come from the Seahawks. He took part in their local pro day last spring and said he felt like “they really liked me a lot.”

Circumstance finally led to opportunity this week with the Seahawks needing depth after placing first-round pick Jadarian Price on injured reserve with a shoulder injury and practice squad running back Jacardia Wright on IR with a foot injury and the attempt to get Mixon not working out.

But maybe it was fated to be — Chief Sealth is also called the Seahawks, though their name predates the arrival of the NFL franchise by roughly 20 years.

“It’s just a blessing,” McMillan said. “I just feel like it’s all in God’s hands. And just using every day — this is day two — just to get better every single day.”

Most notable on the Seahawks’ injury report for Thursday’s practice is that defensive lineman Leonard Williams was listed as not participating because of an ankle injury suffered Sunday against the Chargers. Williams was listed as limited on Wednesday. There was no immediate word on if Williams suffered a setback or if he may be in danger of not playing against the 49ers on Sunday. The team will release its weekly game status report Friday.