CHENEY – He used to love to talk about his mother. The way she instilled values in him. The way she taught him the meaning of strength.
The way she made him into the man he is today.
But Marcus Tubbs, the Seattle Seahawks’ rookie defensive tackle, prefers not to talk about his mother these days. It can be too painful.
You see, Tubbs is in the public eye now. And some things are just too personal to share with the world.
Like the fact that his mother, Jeanette Tubbs, is sick. Marcus won’t say how sick, or even what’s ailing her, but she’s sick enough that he didn’t want to leave his hometown of DeSoto, Texas, last week for fear of being away from her.
“It was real hard,” he said after joining his Seahawks teammates last Tuesday following an eight-day absence from training camp. “In the back of your head, you’re thinking: Maybe I shouldn’t leave. Maybe that’s where I need to be right now.”
This much is certain about Jeanette Tubbs’s health. Seven years ago, she was diagnosed with cancer and had to begin undergoing chemotherapy. The disease eventually went into remission, and Jeanette Tubbs appeared to be in the clear.
Then, almost two years ago, the cancer came back. The weekly chemotherapy returned, but all seemed to be under control.
No one can imagine what it has been like for Marcus Tubbs to see his mother, one of the strongest people in his life, taken down by an invisible disease. And the 324-pound defensive lineman buried his feelings even deeper after the Holiday Bowl last January.
During the television broadcast of that game – a 28-20 loss to Washington State – a sideline reporter unwrapped Tubbs’s secret for the entire country to consume.
“It’s been hard for him,” said Mack Tubbs, Marcus’s father. “It really affected him at the Holiday Bowl, when they put the camera on him and said: ‘His mom has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.’
“It’s not terminal cancer.”
So now, Marcus Tubbs is even more secretive about his mother’s health. While he does say that part of his reason for missing last week was an illness to his mother, he refuses to get more specific than that.
And who can blame him? There are few things more cherished than the love between a mother and son.
“I think Marcus’s inner strength comes from his mom,” said Bruce Chambers, a former neighbor and assistant coach at Texas. “He was a mama’s boy.”
Contacted last May, Jeanette Tubbs said she’ll always appreciate her youngest child for his soft demeanor underneath the massive body. She thinks back to 1997, when he was a nave, 16-year-old man-child who would sit next to her bed and pour glasses of water for his ailing mother.
“Marcus always thought a cold glass of water would make me feel better,” Jeanette Tubbs said with a chuckle. “I’d get so sleepy, and he’d sit by my bed and be there for me.
“We tried to live as normal a life as possible. We tried not to live life around (the cancer). We tried not to make a big deal of it.”
Watching his mother battle a weakening disease had an effect on teen-aged Marcus.
“She’s his inspiration,” said Chambers.
Now 23, Tubbs still gets inner strength from his mother.
“She’s been there for me,” he said last week. “She made me into a tough person, along with my dad. They instilled a lot of values in me that I still carry today that helped me through life.”
While it was difficult for Marcus to leave home last week, his mother helped convince him that she would be all right.
“This is where I need to be to help me have a better life and help my parents have a better life,” the Seahawks’ first-round draft pick said from training camp at Eastern Washington University. “Me and my parents talked about it, and they told me I better get my butt up there.”
Now more mature, Marcus Tubbs knows that pouring cold glasses of water won’t bring his mother joy. Watching her youngest son play professional football on television is a better way to provide relief.
“I am so proud of him,” she said. “I’m excited, as well as proud. I’m excited that he’s spreading his wings.”
No matter how far he flies, Marcus Tubbs will always feel his mother’s love. It is her strength that helps carry him through life.
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