The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Basketball player honors his late brother
Cassius Winston’s new pregame greeting is one example of how his habits have changed after brother Zachary’s suicide in November.
The quiet gesture from Cassius Winston goes largely unnoticed amid the hysteria at the start of another Michigan State basketball game. Just before tipoff, Winston greets his teammates at midcourt. Then he turns away, slaps his right hand toward the air in front of him, slides it near his left shoulder and leans forward, hopping into a shoulder bump.
The new pregame routine for Winston, the All-American point guard and team captain, isn’t to pump himself up. It’s a greeting he developed in high school, one he used almost daily. It is a handshake and one of the many examples of how his habits have changed after the suicide of his brother Zachary in November.
“He’s out there with me,” Cassius Winston said, recounting how he and his younger brother developed the handshake. The shoulder bump was their third option for the finish. They were going to snap, but Zachary didn’t know how. They were going to clap, but Cassius had a broken left wrist at the time. “He’s out there with me on the floor, and we’re going to make it through together.”
Adjusting to the grief has not been easy for Winston or the team, which started the season ranked No. 1 and had regarded Zachary Winston, who played at Division III Albion College, as family. It has taken a toll, as well, on Tom Izzo, the Hall of Fame coach who has led Michigan State since 1995.
“This is the hardest thing I’ve gone through,” Izzo said.
Izzo has been slow at times to chastise Winston for on-court mistakes. Sometimes, when the team is celebrating a win in the locker room, the mood changes when Winston enters because, as Izzo said, “You don’t feel good about feeling good.”
Winston is aware of these moments, the sudden shifts. He tries his best not to allow the grief he is working through to dictate his team’s feelings. When it happens anyway, he feels guilty for letting his sadness become too evident in front of teammates and coaches who mean well and are trying to help him heal.
Winston has pushed to maintain his leadership role with the team, while continuing to learn about himself with patience and persistence. The process has allowed him to look at his life, basketball and his relationship with his late brother in a new way. He also calls his parents, Wendi and Reg, and his other brother, Khy, before each game to make sure they are in a good space emotionally.