Xavier Tillman and college life as a stay-at-home dad
GRAND RAPIDS — Michigan State basketball players share apartments in the new 1855 Place student housing unit built a block away from Breslin Center in East Lansing. On the opposite side of the parking lot from the building they all live in, a section of 1855 Place is dedicated for family housing.
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There, Xavier Tillman, his fiancée, Tamia Todd, and their 10-month-old daughter, Ayanna Tillman, live together.
On Sunday, Tamia and Ayanna had prime seats, directly behind the Michigan State bench at Van Andel Arena. They watched Tillman, 18, receive a hero’s welcome in his old hometown. He starred at Grand Rapids Christian High School and was one of the top 2017 basketball recruits in the state before heading to Michigan State for college. He checked into an exhibition game against Georgia with 14:05 left in the first half. A crowd of 10,699 roared.
Among them was Tanya Powell-May, sitting at midcourt. She grew up in Flint, but moved to Grand Rapids in high school when her father transferred jobs at General Motors. That was in the early ’80s and she’s lived in Grand Rapids ever since. She raised Xavier here while working as a licensed CPA and a realtor. She, along with Roosevelt Tillman, Xavier’s father, said goodbye to their son when he left town last spring. He moved from Grand Rapids to East Lansing the day after his high school graduation.
That was when he started his new life.
“I’ve been super impressed with how he’s handled the situation,” Powell-May said Sunday. “Tamia and Ayanna are his priorities. He knows that he’s (at Michigan State) to do basketball and he has a job, but the reason they’re there in East Lansing is because that’s where his work is. He’s there every day, changing diapers.”
There’s no blueprint for this. It’s not entirely uncommon for collegiate athletes to juggle school, sports and parenthood. It is fairly out of the ordinary, though, for a freshman to bring his budding family to campus with him and dovetail those lives all at once. In Tillman’s case, he’s a full-time student, a full-time basketball player and a full-time dad. He’s there to fold the laundry. He’s there for bath time. He’ll be home in time for dinner.
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“I kind of just take it day by day and make sure I’m very supportive and loving to my fiancée, and when I get home, taking care of my daughter and relieving that stress of my fiancée taking care of the baby,” Tillman said. “Then when I get around my team, I have to kind of flip a switch in my head and go from dad mode — ‘Hey, shouldn’t do that! Hey, you shouldn’t do that!’ — back to being a freshman. It’s not like I can tell the older guys what to do.”
Ayanna was born in December 2016. Xavier proposed to Tamia in May. They plan to marry after finishing school. While Xavier is at MSU, Tamia is enrolled at Lansing Community College. Since the summer, they’ve been on their own, living in their apartment, chasing their tomorrows together.
Of the heavy workload, Powell-May nodded slowly and said, proudly, “He’s been managing it.”
His life changed rapidly. Tillman was a massive star in high school, literally and figuratively. He’s listed at 6-foot-8 and 260 pounds. He has a big, impressive, square head and barrel chest. His hands are catcher’s mitts. A physically dominant high school player, he took Grand Rapids Christian by storm when he transferred from Forest Hills Central as a junior. He led the team to a 22-2 record as the school drew packed houses for home games. As a senior, he was a top-100 recruit and led GR Christian to a 27-1 record and an appearance in the Class A state title game. When it came time to pick a college, classmates packed shoulder-to-shoulder in a large room at the school to hear him choose Michigan State over Marquette and Purdue.
Now, having brought his young family with him to MSU, Tillman doesn’t quite get the star-studded college life of his teammates. He has his own world, his own bubble.
“It’s kind of more of a job,” Tillman said. “Like when I have to get up early and go for a lift or something, I kind of always tell myself, ‘OK, time to go to work.’ It’s that way. Before I had my family, I still had the mindset that I was going to work as hard as I can. But now, with them, it added a little motivation to never quit.”
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Powell-May knew what all of this would entail. She played college basketball at Michigan from 1986 to 1990. She finished her career as the school’s all-time leading rebounder (currently fourth) and played in the 1990 NCAA Tournament. She’s seen the time demands. She’s seen what it takes, not just to play this level, but to succeed. One would have to be profoundly naive to think Tillman, by merging his worlds, is facing the same circumstances as other players. Powell-May is anything but naive.
“As a mother, I definitely had that concern, but I think we were just very clear in our conversations about our expectations,” she said. “Tamia and Ayanna are his priority, but he also has a great opportunity with basketball and to get an education. We were all clear that there couldn’t be distractions and everyone is committed to that.”
A member of the Michigan State coaching staff recently sent a text message to Powell-May. It said that Tillman has impacted the program for the better. It said he makes everyone better.
A conversation with Tillman shows why. He speaks with wide eyes and is highly likable. Tom Izzo described him Sunday as “a tough, caring kid.”
“He’s so mature for being 18 years old,” Michigan State senior Tum Tum Nairn said. “He’s doing an unbelievable job. We understand if he can’t do something like go to the movies with us, but he always makes the effort. It’s a pretty amazing thing to see. He has a lot on his plate for a young dude, but I’ve never heard him complain.”
Nairn said Ayanna has “16 uncles,” that Tillman’s family is as much a part of the program as he is.
After Michigan State wrapped up its 80-68 exhibition win over Georgia, the team high-fived fans in the front row on their way to the locker room. Each player stopped Tamia and bent down to tease and tickle Ayanna. Tillman, who scored two points and grabbed four rebounds in the game, kissed both.
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Then Dad waved to the crowd and jogged into the locker room.
Approached by a local TV reporter after the game, Tillman was asked about the charitable money raised by his hometown fans in Grand Rapids, a total that nearly reached $350,000. Tillman looked into the camera and said it showed that his old community is “dependable, reliable and supportive.”
It all sounded very familiar.
(Feature photo courtesy of Tanya Powell-May)
