'Nobody knows what Iâm going through': Michigan State star Cassius Winston's overwhelming grief
EAST LANSING, Michigan â The call came in after midnight. Tom Izzo didnât hear it. But when he saw a few minutes later that it was Milt Barnes, he figured the former Eastern Michigan University basketball coach wanted tickets to that dayâs game against Binghamton.
âIâll call him back in the morning,â Izzo thought.
Five minutes later, his phone rang again. It was David Thomas, Michigan Stateâs director of basketball operations.
âMilt Barnes is trying to get a hold of you,â Thomas told Izzo. âHe says itâs important.â
Izzo took a deep breath.
He called Barnes back.
Barnes had grown up in Saginaw and played college basketball at Albion. He coached at Albion High School after a long career at the college level. His son, MJ, plays for Albion College, with Cassius Winstonâs two younger brothers, Zachary and Khy.
âZachary is gone,â Barnes told Izzo. âHe was hit by a train.â
He didnât have any other details.
Izzo got off the phone and called his assistant coach, Mike Garland, who was staying with MSUâs basketball team at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center on campus, as he and the team always do on weekends the night before a home game.
He told him the news. Asked where Cassius was, and jumped in his car.
Earlier:Cassius Winston carries grief like heavy burden: 'I cried before the game'
As soon as Garland hung up, he bolted for the hallway to head for Winstonâs room. He took a few steps before spotting the teamâs star point guard walking toward him from the other end of the hallway. He picked up his pace. A few seconds later Winston collapsed into his arms, sobbing.
âThere was nothing to say,â Garland said.
He guided Winston back to his room, where they sat for the next 15 minutes. Eventually, Winston said he needed to see his teammates. Garland told him to sit tight, and he left to gather the team.
When he opened his door to step out, the players were spilling into the hallway. He motioned them to come in. They tried to console Winston, unsure what to say. There was mostly silence.
A few minutes later, Izzo arrived. He embraced Winston and they headed for the lobby to wait for Winstonâs parents, Wendi and Reg. Garland joined them. A half-hour later, Winstonâs youngest brother, Khy, arrived from Albion with an assistant basketball coach. The parents got there shortly after that.
For the next few hours, Izzo, Winston, his family, his girlfriend and Garland sat on the floor and talked. Izzo finally left around 4:30 a.m. There was a team breakfast at 10 a.m. Shootaround was scheduled for 2 p.m. The game against Binghamton tipped at 7 p.m.
Before he left, Izzo told Winston he didnât need to play. Maybe shouldnât play. That if it were him, he probably wouldnât play. But he left it up to Winston.
The game that night was a blur for everyone. It has been a blur ever since.
Worrying about everyone else
Winston is an All-American because of his eyes. He sees angles and space. Slivers of room. The movement of bodies as they dart and collide and change direction. He finds order in that chaos and anticipates where openings will appear. At his best, he can orchestrate the movement himself.
Right now, Winston canât see. Not the way he has since he first learned to dribble a basketball. Grief is blocking his vision. So is his lack of desire to play.
All his life, outside of his family, the court is where he found joy. Since that night of Nov. 9, when his younger brother stepped in front of a train just outside Albion Collegeâs campus, the court has offered little refuge.
âPlaying basketball doesnât bring the same joy, the same freedom, the same kind of outlet,â he said last week. âUsually on the court, you feel free. You feel open. Like you can make anything happen. (But now), at certain times I donât even want to be out there. I would rather go talk to my brother, be somewhere with my family. That's where it gets tough.
"It's some long days. Long nights. I canât sleep ⊠Itâs been the longest month of my life.â
Take the Duke game a couple of weeks ago. His father told him right before the national anthem that his mother couldnât be there. The news knocked the wind out of him.
She couldnât stomach another night of forced small talk and strangers offering condolences. Winston understood. But heâd counted on her presence. And he worried.
âI almost cried during the anthem,â he said.
Then he spent the game thinking about his mom. Looking into the stands at her empty seat during stoppages in play, or timeouts, in the middle of the game, the ball in his hands.
âThat was tough because there is so much you gotta worry about,â Winston said. âLike, make sure theyâre OK. There are so many people to make sure are OK. And my mom is one of my backbone pieces. It sucked. It was awful. But it wasnât for me. It was for her. Coming to the games is a constant reminder she lost her son.â
Winston struggled against Duke. He might have struggled under normal circumstances; every player has off nights. But he couldnât focus. He couldnât feel anything but her absence, her pain. Not even the basketball in the palm of his hand.
He talked to his mom after the game. She apologized.
âYou gotta tell me before the game,â he told her. âTell me early. If you canât be there, I understand.â
He understands everything, really. Why rooms go silent when he enters. Why he canât eat. Or lift weights. Or take extra shots in the gym.
Why his teammates donât know what to say. Why his coaches often donât, either. Why he lays in bed at night awake. All night. Sometimes until the light pours through the window.
Why his brother stepped in front of the train.
âHe had one bad day,â Winston said. âThe pain was too much.â
Why he is angry, even though thatâs hard to admit. Why he feels regret. That he couldâve done more. That he shouldâve done more.
âLike I had more power (to keep this from happening),â he said. âLike I gave him too much freedom to make his own decisions. I feel like I had the power to take him out of school and move him here with me. Like all type of things.â
Winston and his family knew Zachary struggled. They knew he had found himself in dark places. It wasnât a secret.
âWe were all pretty much open. We had conversations,â he said. âWe took almost every step possible that we could. His pain was too much for him to bear on his own.â
He knows that in his brain. Even in his soul.
But in his heart?
He is the oldest. The leader. The one who always made everything better. Made everyone better. Thatâs easy to see on the court. Thatâs the skill that helped MSU get to the Final Four last season. He has always been that way off the court, too.
âThatâs been my role my whole life,â he said. âIâve been the guy that carries a lot of people. Not because thatâs what people expect, but because thatâs what I enjoy doing. I enjoy being able to make people better than what they are, or what they think they can be.â
In the end, he couldnât make his brother better. No matter how much or how hard he tried. And that loss, that pain, is preventing him from making his team better at the moment.
He feels that weight.
âThis is my team,â he said. âI know Iâm a very important piece. But you can only spread your energy, your heart, your mind (so far). To be responsible for the guys on the team is very difficult because I donât even know what Iâm doing with myself. Iâm trying to pull myself together to get through the day.â
Heâs also trying to get his brother Khy through the day, and his mom through the day, and his dad through the day.
âRight now, Iâm spread so thin that itâs hard to do it all,â he said.
His focus has changed
Izzo and the coaching staff are desperate to ease his burden. Some days are more successful than others. But as Izzo said last week, there is no film study to fix whatâs broken, no manual or clinic or playbook.
There is just grief and its ripples.
âI go to bed every night wondering what I can do differently,â Izzo said, âwondering who I can call, what I can say, how I can change or not change our routine.â
Izzo sought advice from a psychiatrist. He talked to Tony Dungy, the former NFL coach who lost a son to suicide, and he asked Dungy to call Winstonâs parents.
âHe was incredible,â Izzo said.
He talks to Winston as much or as little as Winston wants. He calls the family. He meets with his coaches daily to figure out what to do next.
Yet as long as he has coached, as much as he has seen, he has never navigated through anything like this. Winston didnât just lose a brother. He lost a brother to suicide. Winston isnât just a regular player on the team. He's the point guard who directs the team, the center of the locker room, the source from which everything flows on the court.
A few days after the team returned from the Maui Invitational Tournament in Hawaii, Izzo asked Winston if he wanted to come over to his house and maybe watch a little film, have a bite to eat, and talk. About whatever he wanted to talk about.
Winston agreed. Then called his coach later in the afternoon to cancel. He had to join his parents in Albion to clean out Zacharyâs room.
Izzo was in his office when he called.
âAnd the color left my face, and I about fell out of my chair,â he said.
Not that he forgets, but because he couldnât imagine what that must be like. And he almost felt guilty for thinking he could ask Winston to do something as normal as watching extra film.
Yet at some point he has to. And he has to figure out how to coach his team. And Winston wants him to push him ⊠in theory.
Even though heâd rather be anywhere but on the court.
âIt changes your focus,â Winston said. âIâm trying to focus on the game, but I still feel something in the back of my mind. Something is missing. My whole time here (at MSU), basketball has been the biggest thing. Coming in spending time, getting in the gym, thatâs been the biggest part of my life. And now something has happened that destroyed my world, turned it upside down.
"Now I would rather check on my brother. I would rather spend time with my mom than come to practice. That's just where Iâm at.â
'I donât want people to pity me'
But there are moments. Moments of light. Moments were the ache subsides and he can feel the basketball on his fingertips, and he can take off down the court and actually see.
Heâs had a few more of those moments in the past week. The past couple of practices have been better. Heâs learning how to change his vibe when he enters the film room, the dining room, the huddle to begin practice.
âEven if I have to fake it,â he said. âMy team needs me.â
It has been a month since that night he walked down the hall and fell into Garlandâs arms. The shock is throttling back slightly. And while he still toggles between heartache and anger, still rolls all those what-ifs as he lies awake at night, still wants to tell his brother, Zachary, a thing or two when he meets him again in the afterlife, he is finding a way to be who he is supposed to be.
To be who he is.
âI want to accomplish a lot of things through basketball because thatâs what like my family, my brother, thatâs what everybody would want me to do,â he said.
The season isnât finished. The NBA is out there. Heâs grateful for all the condolences and sympathy and love he has felt these past several weeks.
âIt comes from a good place,â he said. âBut I donât want people to pity me. I donât want to walk into a room and feel people get down or sad. Like, theyâre connected to (Zachary), they knew him, but thatâs not their world. You donât know it until you lose someone that is a part of you. You can know somebody, and they can go away but you wonât feel it in your heart, in your body because thatâs not your actual connection. Like they feel bad for me, but they donât know what Iâm going through.
"Nobody knows what Iâm going through.â
This is what Izzo tells himself. Every day. All day.
That he can try to put himself in Winstonâs shoes. But he canât truly relate.
He can make sure he and his staff and the rest of his team don't forget, and they keep Zacharyâs memory alive, but also that he canât dwell. Because Winston doesnât want that, either.
âItâs hard (for anyone in the program to be happy), hard to show much emotion,â he said.
And for a program built on joy and tough love and family connection, this is the hardest of all. The soul of the team is wounded. Whatever basketball issues remain â finding consistency at the power forward spot; Aaron Henry navigating self-imposed pressure to impress NBA scouts; replacing Joshua Langfordâs shooting and perimeter defense â the team wonât find itself until Winston does.
He knows this. It may not be fair. But itâs life. His life.
âIâve got to figure out how to bring energy, to have a release,â he said. âFor the team. (But) I do it to try to help myself, too.â
Last week, he went to the gym to shoot. He got back in the weight room. He forced himself to eat, at least a little.
For a month, nothing felt right. Being on the court didnât feel like it was where he belonged.
âI needed to be somewhere else,â he said.
Yet he is beginning to breathe again. Beginning to see. Beginning to talk. Beginning to hope.
âIâm getting (closer) to the point where basketball is my safe place,â he said, âwhere I can break away from the world.â
Suicide Lifeline: If you or someone you know may be struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) any time of day or night or chat online