Kansas’ Thomas Robinson Playing With a Purpose

Published: 11^th Feb 12 11:35 pm

by Marian Hinton
Texas Sports Blogger

RANT It!

Kansas’ Thomas Robinson Playing With a Purpose

The Kansas Jawhawks evoke strong feelings from most college basketball fans, whether it’s passionate fandom or pure hatred for the perennial powerhouse. No matter how one feels about the Jawhawks however, there is no denying that it is impossible not to cheer with all your heart for Kansas’ star, Thomas Robinson.

This time last season, Robinson was coming off as difficult a month as one could ever imagine in their worst nightmares.

Robinson and his much younger sister, Jayla, were raised by their single mother, Lisa Robinson, as an incredibly close-knit family. In the middle of his sophomore season at KU, Robinson, at the time the Jawhawks’ promising 6th Man, received word from his mother that his grandmother had passed away. He traveled home to Washington D.C. to attend her funeral, and to support his family through their mourning.

Just three short weeks later, he again received word from his mother that her father, Thomas’ grandfather, had also passed away. She told him not to come home for the funeral, convincing him that he needed to focus on basketball. Little did he know, she was hiding something else as well.

Ms. Robinson didn’t want her son to see that, for a while, she had been feeling badly herself, suffering from headaches and what the doctors determined to be a clogged artery in her heart.

As Robinson slowly began to pick up the pieces from the loss of both his grandparents in less than a month, one week later, he received another phone call; this time from his then 7-year old sister.

His sister, barely unable to speak through her sobs, told him that their mother had suffered a heart attack at the young age of 38, and that she too, was gone.

Completely heartbroken, all Robinson could think about, even through his intense pain, was his sister. He knew he needed to bring her to be with him so that he could take care of her.

However, it was at this time that she was beginning to get close to her biological father (not Thomas’ father), and his family. He couldn’t stand the thought of uprooting her when she had already lost so much, so he made the decision to allow her to stay with her father. In an interview with ESPN, Thomas stated:

“I have a lot of mixed feelings about James (her dad),” Thomas told ESPN, “but he loves his daughter and she loves him, so that’s something that I thought about, as far as me wanting to take my little sister. She’d lost a lot, and all she knows is me and him. So I couldn’t be selfish. That’s why she’s home.

“It kills me. I pray the days go by fast sometimes, just so I can see her. I wished that she could be with me here right by my side. But it wasn’t the best timing for it, you know?”

Despite his world coming unraveled and suffering too much pain for anyone to endure, let alone a sophomore in college, with the help from his teammates, friends, and head-coach Bill Self, Thomas was able to pull through, using basketball as his escape from the pain he felt.

But the more he played, the more things changed. Basketball wasn’t just a game anymore. It became his purpose. Basketball would give him the means to do something he currently couldn’t–take care of his little sister.

In the same interview with ESPN, Thomas explained:

“My whole purpose of playing basketball was different,” Thomas says. “I don’t care about the points anymore. I don’t care about the stats. I don’t care about being the man. This was just a stepping-stone for me to get where I have to go. I want Jayla with me. I want full responsibility for everything. And I was in a position that if I took care of business with basketball, everything I wanted for her could become possible.”

This season, Thomas is no longer Kansas’ 6th Man; he is their star. He is currently the team’s lead scorer and rebounder, and believed by many to be the favorite to be named College Basketball’s Player of the Year.

Robinson talks to Jayla every day, and one day hopes that they will soon be together again.

And he knows what he has to do to get there.

For Robinson, basketball isn’t about fame or about fortune. It’s not about points, or stats, or even wins.

For him, a kid who has had to endure more pain in the last year than most of us have had to our entire lives, basketball is about one thing–the most important thing.

Family–and more specifically, a little girl named Jayla.

Connect with Rant Sports