COMMENTARY
Son’s fight for life inspires Ohio State’s Stockman
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
TODD JONES
His different worlds collided, the one of joyous screams, the other of silence.
One moment he was in the middle of hundreds of fans, all jumping in celebration in the aftermath of his final Ohio State home game, a victory for the ages.
Then he was walking down a hospital’s quiet hallway, heading to a room to see his son, a 6-week-old baby with a twoinch surgical scar on his shaved head.
"People don’t understand what you do when you leave the gym," Tony Stockman said.
Stockman left Value City Arena after OSU’s stunning 65-64 upset win over No. 1-ranked and previously undefeated Illinois on Sunday and went straight to Children’s Hospital.
His son Tayden has been there since Jan. 30, when he underwent surgery two days after his birth to remove two cysts on his brain.
"He’s doing really well," Stockman said. "I can’t wait to get him home, hopefully at the end of this week or next week."
Holding that baby makes the end of Stockman’s college basketball career this week in the Big Ten Tournament seem like a mere passing phase of life.
The senior guard doesn’t want OSU’s games to end — "basketball is my stress release," he said — and he hopes to play professionally next year, perhaps in Europe.
Yet basketball, part of his life since he used to dribble before he was old enough to walk, doesn’t define Tony Stockman.
"Getting a degree and being a father is a big part of who I am now," he said.
Basketball is a possible future option instead of a necessity for Stockman. He is on pace to graduate with a degree in sociology this spring.
"I’ve enjoyed studying sociology," Stockman said. "It’s helped me a lot in life. I’ve learned about people, why they do things, and it’s given me different perspectives on life."
His own life recently grew more complicated. Stockman’s girlfriend, Brittany Keltz, was due to give birth Feb. 16, but an ultrasound caused alarm. Doctors saw the need to induce labor and perform a Caesarean section Jan. 28.
Tayden Stockman, greeted by his father with "instant love," was only a day old when a magnetic resonance imaging revealed brain cysts.
"I was looking through the glass and I could see he was having trouble breathing on the table," Stockman said. "I just wanted to help him and hold him. Then he was off to the incubator."
The same weekend as his son’s surgery, Stockman permanently lost his starting position to Je’Kel Foster, continuing a star-crossed basketball journey.
Stockman shared the Ohio Mr. Basketball award as a senior at his hometown’s Medina High School, but his college career has been bumpy. He has hit big shots, been benched, played for three coaches at two schools (he transferred from Clemson after two seasons), lost more games (63) than he’s won (58), and will end up having never played in the NCAA Tournament.
"It hasn’t gone exactly the way I wanted it to go, but I’m happy," Stockman said. "You’ve got to take the negatives as positives, learn from them and adjust. Coming back to Ohio State and having Tayden has been a blessing."
Stockman has visited his son at the hospital, often staying until midnight, every day that OSU hasn’t had a road game. He spent six hours with him Monday.
"A lot of people have it worse than I do," Stockman said. "You talk to people at the hospital and see kids who are two years old and still in there. You see kids walking down the halls with IVs in their arms."
Tayden Stockman no longer needs a feeding tube in his nose. He’s shown steady improvement, although his father said doctors are uncertain if the baby will have problems because the cysts had put pressure on his brain.
"You want everything to be perfect for your child," Stockman said. "I’m looking at everything really positively."
And his quiet moments are as fulfilling as the cheers.
Stockman was in his son’s hospital room Sunday night, working on a paper for a sociology class, when the senior looked up at the TV and saw highlights of Ohio State’s win over Illinois from that afternoon.
"That’s a different part of my life," he said. "Seeing my son and how good he’s doing, that made for a great day."
Todd Jones is a sports columnist for The Dispatch
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