Penn State’s Gross-Matos saw his older brother die 10 years ago. Now, ‘I play for him’
Chelal Gross-Matos loved playing baseball as a youngster, idolized Derek Jeter and was the best player for the Yankees, of course, in the Spotsylvania (Va.) Little League. His biggest fan was his brother, Yetur, an outfielder who was a year younger.
“We shared the same bedroom,” Yetur said. “We were inseparable.”
Everything changed on the evening of June 3, 2009, at Lee Hill Park in Spotsylvania. With storm clouds approaching, their game was halted for safety reasons. Chelal and a teammate, probably bored by the delay, grabbed a ball and their gloves and wanted to play catch.
As Sakinah Gross-Matos, Chelal’s mother, moved forward to stop them, she, her son and his friend were knocked to the ground by a lightning strike. Chelal didn’t get up.
Rob Matos, his coach and stepfather, tried to revive Chelal, but he couldn’t. Chelal was just 12 years old.
“I was there,” Yetur said. “I saw him pass away that day. He was always a star athlete. He was naturally talented at everything. I looked up to him. I wanted to be like him. That’s really what got me going harder in sports. I play for him.”
Now at Penn State, Yetur Gross-Matos emerged as one of the top defensive ends in the Big Ten as a sophomore last season. He’s poised to be one of the best ones in the country this season, although he’s been suspended from the team since the end of spring practice because of a violation of team rules, Nittany Lions coach James Franklin said last week.
He’s expected to return Thursday, the day before training camp opens.
Soft-spoken off the field, Gross-Matos plays with an uncommon fury that helped him record eight sacks and 20 tackles for loss in 2018. He also carries a purpose that those affected by a family tragedy can understand. He wears a tattoo with Chelal’s name across his arm and writes his name on his wrist tape before each game.
“It’s something that’s never left his mind,” said Penn State defensive line coach Sean Spencer, who helped recruit him. “It was such a traumatic experience. That pushes him because he feels like he’s the ‘Chosen One.’ He feels like he’s the guy. I think he lives out the dreams of his brother through himself, which is pretty powerful.”
Tragedy first struck nearly a decade earlier when Michael Gross, the biological father of Yetur and Chelal, drowned in 2000 while trying to save Yetur, then 2, who had fallen off a boat in Maryland. Yetur has seen photographs and video of him, but he has no memories.
A year or so later, Rob Matos met Sakinah and eventually married her and adopted her three children, including an older daughter named Qeturah. They later had two younger children together, Cristina and Robby.
Rob coached Chelal and Yetur in baseball and basketball and pushed them to do their best.
“It’s probably the strongest relationship that I have,” Gross-Matos said. “I love him to death. He came into my life when I was about 2 or 3 years old when he didn’t have to at all. I’m just enormously grateful to have him be a part of my life.”
Yetur always has been bigger than most children his age. For example, he wears size 18 shoes and stood about 6-2 and weighed about 190 pounds in eighth grade.
“He was probably as fast or faster than most, but he was extremely uncoordinated,” Matos recalled. “He had just grown so fast. He was very awkward in his body. He fell a lot. But everything he did, I swear he did it aggressively and 100%, which caused a lot of bumps and bruises.”
Gross-Matos underestimated his athletic ability and viewed himself as chubby when he was growing up. He tried football when he was in elementary school because he thought Matos wanted him to do that. He kept playing baseball and basketball before he returned to football in seventh grade.
During his middle school years, GrossMatos exercised often under the guidance of his stepfather and his mother, a physical education teacher. They did a lot of running and a lot of calisthenics, like situps and pull-ups, in order to get into the best shape possible. They did it seven days a week, according to Matos.
“I’m hard on all my kids because the world ain’t easy,” he said. “I was extremely hard on him. I knew what he was capable of and when I didn’t see that, I let him know. We always talk about attitude and effort. Those are the two things you can control. That was the expectation and he knew it.”
Gross-Matos and Matos, the only father he’s known, shared some tense moments when it came to sports, especially during four years of high school basketball as player and coach. But he said he always understood Matos’ methods.
“There were a lot of moments when I was angry with my dad,” Gross-Matos said. “He kicked me out of the gym multiple times during basketball season. I think that’s the worst that it got. He was just very hard. I needed to win everything.
“That’s what makes a difference for me now in college. If I’m not holding up the standard, then it’s an issue. I learned that standard from my father.”
Gross-Matos played on the offensive and defensive lines as an eighth grader and never rested. His father said he didn’t stand out, but he was “a contributor.” When he arrived at Chancellor High School as a freshman, he was big and fast (4.6 seconds in the 40-yard dash).
Coaches there thought he was going to be a wide receiver or a tight end, but he wanted to be a lineman. One of the assistant coaches thought he should play defensive end. Gross-Matos saw his first varsity action in the third game that season (2013) and made an impact.