Cephus is dealing with dad’s death
MADISON – The phone call was unexpected and devastating.
“It broke me down,” Wisconsin sophomore wide receiver Quintez Cephus said. “Hearing that ... I was speechless…
“I had to run away. I just had to get away.”
The phone call came on April 3, from a family member back home in Macon, Ga.
Cephus’ father, Andre Taylor, had been shot in the head outside a grocery store. He was alive but in critical condition.
“I was hurt because he was in pain,” said Cephus, who was near the UW locker room when he received the terrible news. “I was scared about life without my dad . ...
“But all the while I was thinking he would be fine, that he would survive. I thought he would survive anything. “I didn’t give up.” A member of the strength and conditioning staff noticed Cephus was distraught and es-
corted him to the football offices. Cephus shared the news with head coach Paul Chryst and wide receivers coach Ted Gilmore.
Gilmore decided immediately he would travel with Cephus to Georgia.
“Coach Gilmore told me my father told him to take care of me,” Cephus said, referring to a conversation the two had during the recruiting process. “So coach Gilmore let me know he would always be there for me.”
Cephus returned home in time to see his father, who died the next day. Taylor was 39.
“It was unbelievable, man,” Cephus said. “I wasn’t able to talk to him but I got to see him.”
Cephus spoke Friday during the team’s media day about his father’s death. UW officials understandably allowed Cephus time to mourn in April before making him available for interviews Friday.
It was clear as Cephus struggled to find the right words to talk about his father's death that the pain remains deep and ever present.
“My family, there’s a lot of (bad) stuff going on behind the scenes,” Cephus said. “My dad never really wanted anything going on in my family to bring me down. He was always the person to keep things off my shoulders. He protected me and put a lot of pain on his shoulders.
“So now it is a battle to keep moving forward. He was the leader of my team. That is kind of how I got here. He always knew the next step for me. Now I’ve got to man up.”
Cephus has a support system ready to assist at any moment.
“I lean on my teammates,” he said. “They give me comfort.”
Senior cornerback Derrick Tindal understands the pain Cephus endured in the spring and will continue to battle this season.
Tindal lost his mother to cancer when he was a freshman in 2014.
“I took his dad dying personally,” Tindal said. “Me and Quintez, we were friends before. But I know how it is, losing a parent. I’ve got a special place in my heart for Quintez right now.
“I told him that anything he needs he can come get from me. He needs somebody to talk to.
“Because I know when I was going through my mom’s death I had help. I didn’t want help but the help that I had helped me.
“Just having somebody there for you ... I just know that you might want to be isolated. But you still need people to help build you up.”
Tindal expects the pain to linger within Cephus for a long time. His pain hasn’t gone away. “It creeps in sometimes,” Tindal said. “To this day it still hits me sometimes. Like: ‘Dang, my mom can’t come watch me play.'
“My mom never got to attend one of my games.”
Chryst understands Cephus may have more than football on his mind.
“I think Q has had a good summer and for obvious reasons,” he said. “(Spring) was a hard stretch on him. And that is one of the strengths of our team - they care about each other. So when you ask how have the players helped him, I think immensely.
“Yet you’re always going through that. Q (Cephus) is not done learning how to deal with what happened. He has got to own a lot of it and there’s things only he can go through.
“But he also has a ton of support if and when needed.” Cephus will need it. “I still can’t believe it,” he said softly.