After beating the odds growing up, a promising life ends far too soon
A year ago, Tyrone McGraw announced to the 2016 graduating class at Riordan — where a decade before he had spoken as the school’s valedictorian — that he was born with crack cocaine in his blood system.
He revealed that his father was incarcerated at the time, that his dad’s sister, Leona Banks, raised and navigated him through dangers and roadblocks of the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood for 15 years before she died of cancer his sophomore year at Riordan. Four months later, his godfather and new caregiver, Brad Hallett, died of a stroke.
McGraw’s commencement speech spent little time focusing on those details, instead clearly laying out thoughts, tools and internal ammunition to bypass and hurdle physical and mental obstacles.
Ones he used to earn a scholarship to Stanford, where he played football for two years, set the school’s 60-meter record in track, and earned a bachelor’s degree with honors in American studies. Tools he utilized to study abroad — at Oxford and Berlin — and intern at the White House under President Barack Obama.
On Sunday, almost a year to the date of his commencement speech, with girlfriend Mayte Sanchez by his side, McGraw died in his sleep after a threeyear battle with cancer. He was 29.
McGraw spoke about his diagnosis toward the end of that 2016 speech. He told the graduates that he had been diagnosed with a rare form cancer two years before and that a tumor that ran the length of his neck had been found.
“You have to get up,” he told the students. “It’s easy to want to stay down when you’re down and throw yourself a pity party. … You have to believe in yourself when no one else does. Against all odds. … And simply, you have to commit to yourself. To find a way. There’s no time for excuses. There’s no time for tears or sadness. I can’t stop living because of my circumstance.”
Riordan principal Vittorio Anastasio, who has been at the school 33 years and who invited McGraw to speak, said his good friend and former student was upbeat until the end. He visited McGraw six months ago when the disease had left him without use of his arms or legs.
“He talked with me like nothing was wrong. We just caught up on old times,” Anastasio said. “He never focused on the negative. … I saw him two weeks ago when they gave him a month to live. He was still the same, but just disappointed he couldn’t finish all that potential.”
Anastasio saw all of it at Riordan.
“The neat thing about Tyrone was, as accomplished as he was, he was so humble and cared deeply about others. He bridged everyone together. He set the example of what a student athlete was supposed to be like.”
Anastasio said services are pending and that a memorial would be in the school’s 1,200seat auditorium sometime in the next month.
“There might not be enough seats,” he said. “Tyrone was truly loved.”