Lucas: A New Perspective

By Adam Lucas

In the early weeks of practice for the 2023-24 basketball season, Hubert Davis has tried a variety of ways to emphasize the importance of a sense of urgency.

He's punished transgressions with running. He's raised his voice. One practice plan had a simple message at the top: "No box out=chair." The meaning was very simple: miss a box out, and the offender would be taking a seat on the sideline, just as they'd be coming out of the game if a missed box out happened in competition.

But on Thursday, he didn't need any additional method to show his team how important every minute can be. He only had to tell them to look at the sideline, where Bryce Cabe sat with his family.

Bryce is 10 years old and was on the tail end of a whirlwind couple of days—or, more accurately, a whirlwind couple of years. That's how long it has been since he was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarsoma, a rare type of cancer that attacks soft skeletal muscle tissue. The day that changed his life when he was eight years old began with staying home from school because of an assumed stomach ailment and ended after midnight with a cancer diagnosis.

Since then, he has spent countless days and nights at UNC Children's Hospital (and has also become an honorary teammate of the Carolina baseball team, which has closely followed his fight). He has been through a year's worth of chemotherapy. The cancer has come back three times. Most recently, he spent 53 consecutive days at UNC Hospital earlier this year. He had a tumor removed from his pelvis. He had a tumor removed from his lungs. His prostate and bladder were removed. All within sight of the Dean Smith Center, where Davis and his team were going through a 2022-23 season that at the time felt like losing basketball games was very important and very frustrating.

Up the hill, Shannon Truskowski, Bryce's mom, didn't care about the scores. She only cared that people were trying to help her son. Bryce's family are not longtime Tar Heels, but they are passionate Tar Heels. That's what happens when you spend months watching the doctors, nurses and staff at UNC Hospitals try to save your son. "That's when," Shannon said, "UNC became family to us."

"Those nights are long," Shannon said. "You are up all night and your son is in pain and you don't know if you'll ever get to see a day like this, where he is so happy."

Even with all the treatment, the prognosis for Bryce is not good. Doctors have estimated he may have just weeks to live. So the challenge for that time has been to pack as much into it as is physically possible. In late September, he checked off a dream when he attended Reidsville High with his brother, Noah, and received an honorary degree.

Thursday's visit was part of a special 48 hours that also included a trip to New York City for a Home Alone experience and a series of exotic car rides sponsored by Ride Of Your Life, powered by the Carolina Exotic Car Club. Bryce arrived at the Smith Center in a Lamborghini Urus. "I have seen two people drive to the Smith Center in that type of car," Eric Hoots told Bryce. "One was J. Cole. The other was Michael Jordan."

Neither of those, however, was greeted by Rameses, who immediately challenged Bryce to a game of rock-paper-scissors and was promptly thrashed when Bryce went scissors and cut Rameses' paper. The Carolina portion of Bryce's day wasn't weeks in the making. It only became a possibility approximately 48 hours ago, and a series of Tar Heels--Hoots, the players and coaches, Rameses (seriously), Kiersten Steinbacher, Shane Parrish, Maggie Hobson and others--dropped what they were doing during a very busy week for the basketball program to make sure it was a memorable day. Having an opportunity to impact people via the game of basketball--even when not dribbling a ball--is something that matters to the head coach.

Before Bryce ever walked inside the Smith Center on Thursday, Hoots and Rameses presented him with a gift bag from Carolina Basketball that included a treasure trove of Tar Heel gear, including shoes only available from the Tar Heel equipment room. Bryce sorted through the bag and immediately started walking back to the car.

"He's about to go put on that shirt," Shannon said.

Bryce looked back at her. "And the shoes!" he said.

Luckily, he could do all his wardrobe changes in the Carolina basketball office before heading to court level for practice. He arrived just in time to catch the end of practice, after which he was greeted individually by every Tar Heel player and coach, plus hoisted to the rim by Armando Bacot for a dunk.

"This is not about our guys," Hubert Davis said. "This is about Bryce and about his family. Bryce is a kid and I coach kids. They're just a little bit taller than him. I'm thankful we got the opportunity to talk to his entire family, and to give him the opportunity to be here with us today."

The youngest Tar Heel is Elliot Cadeau, who just turned 19 years old in September. Cadeau vividly remembers what it was like to be ten years old, but until Thursday had no frame of reference for what it might be like to be ten years old and be hooked up to too many tubes to dribble a basketball.

"I'm so grateful for today," Cadeau said. "It really opened my eyes. Coach told us not to take things for granted. Some people don't even make it to my age."

Cadeau will see Bryce again on Friday, as the team formally invited him to Live Action (doors at 5:30 p.m., festivities at 7 p.m.) as a special guest.

"I told the team that I can't imagine as a father having to go through what this family is going through," Davis said. "But I lost my mom when I was 16 years old. And that's why I am a sense of urgency guy, whether it is with my family, my faith, or my coaching. You are not guaranteed tomorrow, and unfortunately, I realized that at a young age. So every day you have to give everything you have."

As she walked out of the Smith Center after practice, Bryce's mom was still marveling at what the Tar Heels had given her son on this particular day. Every player knew his name. He'd walked on a court and made a basket in an arena known around the country.

"Since cancer happened to us, the kindness of people has come out of the woodwork," Shannon said. "To know that people care about our son is priceless. It really touches your heart to know that someone cares about your kid and is trying to make them happy.

"Seeing him have a day like today," and here she glanced at her son, now leading the group in his brand new shoes and fresh Carolina t-shirt beneath a sparkling new Tar Heel jersey, "it just takes your breath away."

Players Mentioned

Armando Bacot

Elliot Cadeau

Related Videos