Nick Eubanks felt chills when
he heard the play-call. He
knew it was one designed to
free him over the middle, a
play Michigan had practiced
repeatedly in the lead-up to
its Nov. 17, 2018 bout with
Indiana. He lined up on the
right side of the line, put his
hand on the ground, heard the
cadence and started flying as
if carried by the wings of an
angel.
He released up the field,
darting up the seam through
the Hoosiers’ defense. As
Zach Gentry broke to the
corner and the safety chased,
Eubanks knew the rest was
inevitable. It was a moment
born of unspeakable tragedy
and unthinkable resilience,
and finally it was all his. His,
and nobody else’s. Gone, if
only for an instant, was the
burdensome past. The end
zone beckoned.
Eubanks caught a dart from
Shea Patterson at the oppos-
ing 20. There was nothing but
green grass in front, but his
head jolted right, left and right
again to be sure. It was the
first touchdown of his career.
Then he crossed the goal line,
as the band played “The Vic-
tors” and the roar of 110,000-
plus washed over.
He didn’t hear much, but he
felt plenty.
He felt his head drop, the
wave of emotion crashing
down. He felt those chills
crawl back up his spine. He
felt his nine siblings, sprawled
out across the country, with
him. At his brother in-law’s
house over 1,000 miles away,
Nick’s father, Clayton, leapt
from the couch and screamed.
Nick felt that, too.
Mostly, though, he felt his
mom.
“I just had my head down,”
Eubanks recalled last Tues-
day afternoon, “and was just
thinking, like, ‘After all I went
through, especially battling
injuries, battling doubts,
battling myself.’ I had rough
days in practice, messing up in
practice, not being counted on.
I just thought about all them
times. It just hit me.”
Then he looked up, pointed
two fingers at the sky and
addressed his mom with two
words.
“Thank you.”
***
Cassandra Eubanks’ dream car
was a Chevy Suburban. Nick
hoped from a young age that
she’d live to see him buy it for
her.
As she was losing strength in
the late 2000s, Nick slowly
entering adolescence, he be-
gan to understand that dream
wouldn’t come to fruition.
Cassandra had been battling
cervical cancer for nearly a
decade, though Nick and his
nine siblings didn’t know the
extent until the bitter end. She
fought it hard and meticulous-
ly, doing chemotherapy and
radiation unbeknownst to her
children. At first, the effort
was to great effect. The can-
cer regressed; the Eubanks’
thought she was in the clear.
“And then it came back,” Clay-
ton said over the phone last
week. “And, what? They say it
comes back with a vengeance?
It did.”
With the cancer spreading and
Cassandra’s health declining,
the doctors recommended am-
putating her leg. The doctors
felt it was the most effective
way to rid her of the tumor.
Amid tribulations and con-
sternation, the family agreed it
was the best course of action.
Clayton was headed to work
when a doctor called to ex-
plain the recommendation.
Harried by the news, he got a
ticket for speeding through a
school district on his way to
the hospital.
“I always kept faith knowing
that she would pull through,
because she fought it all her
life and ‘I’ll beat it,’ ” Nick re-
called. “It got to a point where
she was losing her strength
and stuff like that, and basical-
ly that was it for her.”
Cassandra, 51, died of
post-surgical complications
on Sept. 11, 2011. To this day,
Clayton regrets the decision to
attempt the surgery.
“I wish I’d never have did that,
but she left it on me,” Clayton
said. “... Because it was all for
nothing, and I was kind of just
mad, really. Like I said, it was
all for nothing.”
Nick, 14 at the time, internal-
ized the emotions from that
trauma. He was a reticent kid
already, and the tragedy stayed
clouded in an adolescent haze
of confusion.
“He’s a shy person, man. He’s
not talkative,” Clayton said.
“He was sorta like me with
that; he kept a lot of that
inside. I know (my kids) cried
and stuff, but he didn’t express
a lot. And I tried to do my best
talking with him and stuff,
make him understand what
their mother would want from
them.”
Cassandra left her sec-
ond-youngest son with a part-
ing message, one Nick holds
dear to his heart.
“Before she passed away, I
think two days before, I was
in the room with her, and
she was just like, ‘It’s going
to be alright.’ ” Eubanks said.
“That’s the only thing she
kept telling me. ‘It’s going to
be alright.’ And then, from
that point on, through every
adversity I’ve faced — being
here, being hurt freshman and
sophomore year — I just had
that message in the back of my
head.
“It’s going to be alright. It’s
going to be alright.”
Max Marcovitch
Managing Sports Editor
Eubanks strives to live by his mother’s parting message
Alec Cohen / Daily
Design by Jack Silberman
September 16, 2019 | michigandaily.com
That’s the
only thing
she kept
telling me.
‘It’s going to
be alright.’
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