The game is helping Cassius smile through the pain

EAST LANSING - Cassius Winston took another step in an impossible journey, Monday night.

Nine days into mourning the loss of his brother, Zachary, to suicide, Winston felt the need to thank Michigan State fans for the support they’ve shown him and his family.

He took the public address microphone at Breslin Center following Michigan State’s 94-46 victory over Charleston Southern and expressed his gratitude.

“I just want to thank you all, thank all of Spartan Nation,” he said at center court, moments after the game. “It’s been a really tough time for me and my family. All the support, all the love, all the flowers, I really, really appreciate it from the bottom of my heart, me and our family.

“There’s no better place than this. How much you guys showed how much you care - my teammates, my coaches, everyone in this building - I really appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.

“I lost a piece of my heart but you guys are keeping me going. I love everything about this place and I really appreciate your guys, so thank you.”

The crowd erupted with applause. Many chanted “MVP! MVP!” as he left the court. Others cried.

Teammates received him with hugs in the locker room after the game. They’ve been hugging a lot lately.

“It’s borderline remarkable what that kid has done,” head coach Tom Izzo said. “I keep saying I don’t think I could have done it.”

Winston scored 11 points to go with eight assists and four turnovers. He didn’t practice with the team on Sunday. Izzo gave Winston a day away from the team so that he could travel an hour south of East Lansing to watch his brother, Khy, play for Albion College.

Khy has attended Cassius’s previous games since the tragedy, and a few practices.

“I sent Cassius down there to support his brother,” Izzo said. “I think those are some of the things you have to do in this situation, but at the same time, we haven’t practiced very well. Cash looks tired. He hasn’t practiced much. Cash did some good things (in the game), some great things, but trust me, he wasn’t himself. He was wringing wet five minutes into the game.

“So we are going to just keep battling through this. I think if we just keep pushing and yet have our ears open, we have to be there to understand.”

Izzo encouraged Winston to speak to the Breslin audience after the game.

“I’ve kind of been shut out for maybe a week or so,” Winston said, “so I wanted to reach out and tell them that I see their condolences and their prayers and their love and it really has helped me and my family through this time.”

“I just felt Cassius needed one moment,” Izzo said. “He kept telling me how much he appreciated the cards, and flowers and everything coming into the office. I said if you want a minute, you can thank them all. I thought our people responded well.”

Izzo has coached 638 games. He’s a Hall of Fame leader of men. But there’s nothing in the coaching manual that prepared him for this. He and the Winstons have spoken with professionals and psychologists. Former NFL coach Tony Dungy, who lost an 18-year-old son to suicide 14 years ago, spoke with all of them.

“He was great,” Izzo said of Dungy. “I mean really great, especially with Cash’s mother.”

Cassius somehow smiled while discussing the pain.

“We’re taking it one minute at a time, one moment at a time,” he said in the locker room after the game. “My family is all in East Lansing. We’ve been at the Kellogg Center a lot. My mom also has a condo up here she is renting out. My brother has been up here for a week. My grandma came, my best friend came. We’ve just kind of been together, making it work.

“You never know who’s going to break down, that’s why we’re all there, to kind of pick each other up, help each other out through a tough time.”

It was important to Winston to express his gratitude to Spartan fans, Monday night. They have sent love his way because they feel they know him. He’s been touched by it. It has helped. There are other times when no one can help. Being a beloved public figure makes those times difficult.

“Sometimes you just want to be sad in private,” he said. “Sometimes you want to walk somewhere and put your hood on and just be sad because it is a sad thing. It is a tough time, but you really don’t get that chance because somebody wants to reach out to you. It honestly comes from a good place because you see somebody hurting, you see somebody go through a tough time, you want to tell them, and let them know that you love them, that you care for them. But sometimes you just want to be alone. I want to be able to go somewhere and not have a thousand people touching you and reaching out to you.”

Dealing with unspeakable grief, while living in a spotlight.

“It’s different,” he said. “It’s one of those things you have to get used to. It’s not all bad. It’s just different.”

The Winston brothers are helping each other through it.

“I think we’re at the stage where we’re trying to get back to normal as much as we can, trying to adjust to this new life that we have,” Cassius said. “Just knowing there’s going to be tough times. It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s not supposed to be like it didn’t happen. It’s never going to be that. It’s just about things that we can do to not let his name go in vain. Things that we do that make him proud, that make our family still proud. I think that’s where we are as a family.”

He and his brother have found that pain almost goes away when they’re playing basketball, especially during a game.

“Just to have that distraction, just two hours of something else, getting your mind away from you,” Cassius said. “It hits you at random times, but if you can have that two-hour distraction for you, that’s always been good for us.

“Just being in East Lansing, just playing the game that I love, that’s kind of been my safe haven for as long as I can remember, just a distraction from the real world, from reality. That’s what it is. The best distraction I’ve got, the place I’m most comfortable is out there on the floor, so being able to go out there and play, make plays, even if it’s not all good, it’s still doing something, you’re still moving, you’re still active and I think that’s what he would want from me, to keep moving forward, to keep trying to make us proud.”

Cassius hasn’t missed a game since the tragedy. He played on Sunday night, Nov. 10, the day after it happened.

“I went out there to play because first of all I have to play eventually,” he said. “I can’t quit the game of basketball. I came too far to stop now. I told myself that if I can play at my lowest, at the most difficult time to play, then the next time it hits me, the next time it’s hard to get out there, it’s probably going to hurt, it’s going to be tough, but I did it at my lowest, so any other thing I can probably get through. It won’t be as hard as that first time.

“It wasn’t very difficult to decide to play. My family, we talked and they said if I didn’t want to do it, I didn’t have to do it. I felt like that’s what I needed to do.

“The day was awful. All that was terrible. But the actual decision to play wasn’t bad. It was just kind of figuring out a motivation, figuring out how to fight through everything that’s going through your head and actually focus.”

Finding a motivation wasn’t difficult. As usual, his family was the motivation, and his late brother.

“If you know me, that’s who I am from the beginning,” Winston said. “I’m not just doing anything for myself, it’s always been for my family. With Smoothie gone, it makes it a little tough, going out there, playing. It hits you every now and then. But to know he wants the best for me, he wants me to do my best, that’s enough motivation to go out and make him proud.”

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