Winning the Super Bowl is momentous — but when you are perhaps the greatest quarterback who ever lived and your inspiration in the biggest game of the year is your mom, things get downright magical.

Galynn Brady, mom of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, has been fighting an undisclosed form of cancer for the last 18 months, according to reports. She was able to travel to Houston, Texas, for Super Bowl LI to watch her son play — and she shared an emotional hug with him in the frenzy after the Patriots’ stunning come-from-behind victory against the Atlanta Falcons, who were up 28-3 at halftime.

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Moms around the country no doubt melted — and maybe some sons did, too.

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“I love Tom anyway — let’s get that straight right off the bat. But when he hugged his mom, I got teary,” said Massachusetts wife and mom Mary Anne Donaghey, who watched the game with friends Sunday night. “His emotion was all there on his face. He loves her so much.”

Indeed, Brady called his mom “my everything” just days before the big game.

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“All the girls in my life, my wife, mom, my sisters, my daughter, my nieces, they’re all here, so it’s just so special,” he told Westwood One Sports.

“I love that Tom Brady doesn’t hide his emotions about how much he loves the women in his life,” said Elizabeth Tobin, a wife and mom of three, also from Massachusetts. “He’s not macho in that way — he’s an emotional guy, and that’s OK. His priorities seem very aligned.”

Other high-profile athletes have used the sports venue — whether it’s the gridiron, the ice, the court or the turf — to express love and devotion to a loved one either struggling with illness, or already done in by the battle. The results can make one think that perhaps there just may be angels guiding their play.

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Related: Father and Son, Facing Cancer Crisis, Bond Through Sports

Here are some other strong examples:

• Before a 2015 football game against the Tennessee Titans, a Patriots teammate of Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, dedicated the game to close friend Dana Parenteau, who had just died suddenly. Gronkowski scored a touchdown in the first quarter, and pointed to the sky before spiking the football as a tribute to his friend, USA Today reported. The Patriots won the game.

• In November 2016, Dallas Cowboys player Dez Bryant lost his father to illness one day before the Cowboys faced the Pittsburgh Steelers. Bryant played a stellar game, racking up six receptions for 116 yards and a touchdown. The Cowboys gave Bryant the game ball, and he posted a heartfelt Instagram message to his dad that said: “Daddy I know GOD got you … I’m hurt but I refuse to ask why … you always wanted me to make sure things are good with the family especially my brothers … I honestly don’t know a man who walked this earth stronger than you … daddy I’m happy to take the torch … rip daddy.”

• In 2014, Tomas Tator of the Detroit Red Wings dedicated a hockey game to his father, who had just passed away after a long illness — Tator ended up netting the game-winning goal against the Los Angeles Kings. “That game and that goal was for him,” the then-23-year-old told The Detroit News. “I felt he was with me the whole game.”

• Clint Dempsey, a former U.S. national soccer team captain and a current Seattle Sounders, scored a goal in the first minute of the club’s opening World Cup game against Ghana in June of 2014. It was one of the quickest goals in World Cup history and the fastest scored by an American during the Games, reported Comshalom.org. Dempsey’s sister Jennifer had succumbed to a brain aneurism at age 16. Before she died, Dempsey said, she told him, “If I ever die I will help you get the ball in the net.”

“‘We’ve got to win this one for your mom.'”

Now, Dempsey plays in honor of his sister. “That’s why I look up to the sky now when I score — to remember her,” he told The Guardian in a 2010 interview.

Dempsey said his faith powers him on and off the turf. “My faith in Christ is what gives me confidence for the future. I know that through both good times and bad, He is faithful and will watch over me,” he said.

Before the 2017 Super Bowl, Patriots owner Robert Kraft said he had a talk with his QB — who would later be named MVP.

“I spoke to him in the locker room before the game, and I said, ‘We’ve got to win this one for your mom,'” Kraft told reporters after the hard-won victory. “I know how important his mom is, and she’s been going through chemotherapy and radiation, and this is the first game she’s come to.”

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