LINCOLN, Neb. – Before her first night on the streets, Jahmal Banks’ mother chose a family from their community for him to live next to. Kristie Martin was kicked out of her Maryland home and begged him to leave her. It would be temporary, she said.
She promised Jahmal, a student at the private Landon School in Bethesda, that she would see him daily. She wanted to make sure his clothes were ironed before Jahmal entered the classroom every morning 12 years ago. She wanted to know that he would eat a meal every night and that he would have access to a table suitable for homework.
He said no.
“I told my mother, ‘I’ll go wherever you go,’” Jahmal said.
He told her he wished he could feel her pain and take it away.
Kristie, Jahmal and his two young sisters, Jasmin and Zuri, became homeless after Kristie’s divorce from Jahmal’s stepfather. The marriage ended under unhealthy circumstances, she said.
“It was spiritual, monetary, emotional and psychological,” Kristie said. “I didn’t get black eyes or have my teeth knocked out. If you get hit, it can heal. For three years after that divorce, I cut myself off from the world. What kept me going were my children. They are my joy. They are my four heartbeats.
“I lost everything. But I chose my children.”
Kristie’s oldest, Kyerra Martin, attended Bowie State in Maryland on an athletic scholarship and played volleyball and softball. The rest of them sat in Kristie’s Chevy Tahoe that horrible day as she cried for 30 minutes.
Before her divorce, Kristie said she had three months of mortgage payments in the bank. A longtime paramedic, she was recognized for her skills in responding to trauma.
But in this moment, Kristie said, she lost herself.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I lost my control. I was so structured. I never thought I would have to taste bread and not know where to lay my head.”
The first night a friend took them in. For several months that followed, Kristie and her three children moved between hotels and a shelter in Washington, DC. They witnessed the aftermath of a murder. She lost her day job, Kristie said, to work at Safeway and Macy’s so she could accommodate the children’s schedules from a displaced home.
Sometimes Kristie said she had to choose between buying gas and food.
Her perseverance, she said, helped Kristie get back on her feet.
“God placed certain people around us at certain times,” she said. “But it was a fight every day. I have found strength I never knew I had.”
During that time, Kristie and her children also saw the best in people. People who offered them a place to sleep. Or bought their meal unexpectedly in a restaurant.
It formed Jahmal, who turns 23 next month. In his first season as a wide receiver at Nebraska, he is considered a team leader and one of the top targets for freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola. Banks, a transfer from Wake Forest who caught 101 passes in the ACC over the past two years, was the only Nebraska offensive player in August to receive a single-digit jersey — awarded by a vote of the players to their 10 strongest teammates.
‘Tough’ can hardly describe him.
“Jahmal is an anomaly,” Kristie Martin said. ‘Not because he’s my son. You don’t meet a child like that once every 15 to 20 years. He has been through so much – and without a father. We beat so many statistics. And the fact that he is academically and athletically minded the way he is gives me strength.”
Kristie Martin (left) has attended all of Jahmal Banks’ (right) games at Nebraska this season. (Photo courtesy of Kristie Martin)
You’re not going to get into an argument about Matt Rhule’s Banks. After Rhule’s first team at Nebraska finished 5-7 and lost several key players, the coach made plans to build on the backs of the departed leaders.
He hoped his second team would pick up where the first group left off and set a new standard this offseason. However, Rhule didn’t expect a newcomer to come in and raise the bar.
Banks have set a good example in the field of training. But his main impact came from the workouts and the weight room.
“He’s one of the first guys I ever saw — some guys say it — but he’s here to influence other people,” Rhule said. “There is not a day that I am not impressed by his impact on people.
“He’s a great, great person.”
Banks led Nebraska players during offseason community service, a number that is tracked and rewarded with points to create a competitive environment within the team. He scored more in one offseason than any player Rhule has coached at Temple, Baylor or Nebraska.
“He came here to help change our culture,” Rhule said.
It’s not just that Banks wanted to change the Huskers, he said. This is who he is.
Even for actions that don’t earn him points and may go unnoticed by teammates and coaches, Banks is all in. Recently, he bought the food ordered by a group of people standing in line behind him at Chipotle.
Why?
When his mother and sisters felt pain, Jahmal said he held his feelings inside.
“He wanted to make sure we were okay,” his sister Kyerra said. “That was just Jahmal.”
An internal struggle ensued for him.
“Eventually I had to face myself and face what I was dealing with,” he said. “In turn, I developed a purpose to make an impact in the world – I just wanted to do more for my family, to be someone they could count on to be there for them and provide.”
Jahmal said he found purpose and the key to his identity at First Baptist Church in Northwest DC. There he developed a giving spirit that extends beyond his family.
It’s reflected in his first season at Nebraska. Like when he buys food for unsuspecting strangers.
Banks is given the opportunity to help people and does not hesitate to fully reveal his experiences from the difficult times of his youth.
“My son gives so much,” Kristie Martin said.
He caught a 21-yard touchdown pass in the first half of his Nebraska debut. Since then he has had an uneventful trajectory. In three games he has caught seven balls for 76 yards.
But the Huskers are 3-0 and ranked 22nd as they prepare to play Illinois on Friday night in the Big Ten opener for both programs.
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“It’s perfect,” he said, “because I am process-oriented and not results-oriented. I make it all about us. I just keep enjoying the journey. It’s a struggle all the time, but you just have to fall in love with the process.
Jahmal Banks transferred from Wake Forest to Nebraska in the offseason. (Photo courtesy of Nebraska Athletics)
Jahmal played the trumpet for several years and participated in lacrosse, basketball and football. At Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, Virginia, he emerged as an elite prospect on the playing field. Banks transferred to St. Frances Academy in Baltimore as a senior to play against top competition nationally.
The Ivy League offers poured in. His mother wanted him to go to Penn. Jahmal was drawn to the lights of major conference programs.
“For her, it wasn’t the four-year plan,” Banks said. “It was the forty-year plan.”
They found a compromise at Wake Forest, a smaller private school in a major conference. He was looking for a change after last season, expressing concern to Kristie that “there was no guarantee” while watching Nebraska, Wisconsin and Purdue.
“You are the guarantee,” Kristie told Jahmal.
When Kristie met Rhule last winter during their visit to Lincoln, she said she felt “the passion” in him.
“Oh my God, it was so different,” she said. “I knew this was the place he needed to be. I felt like (Rhule) said what he meant and he was going to show me.
Jahmal had no intention of doubting his mother then.
“She cared, saved and changed my life,” Jahmal said. “You can look back and in another timeline, Jahmal is no longer there. But in the timeline that was supposed to happen, he’s here because of what she sacrificed.
He has written, performed and released music about his life experiences.
He often thinks about the turbulent path his family has taken.
“That’s on my mind,” Jahmal said. “I think about my sisters. I look back and what I really want isn’t about money. It’s not fame. It’s about healing.”
Kristie has attended each of the Huskers’ three games at Memorial Stadium. She works in the medical field again and has to miss Friday’s game this week. She will be on site for the rest of them, along with several family members.
Meanwhile, Kyerra coaches volleyball at DuVal High School in Lanham, Maryland, and plays tackle football for the DC Divas as part of the Women’s Football Alliance.
She said she credits Jahmal as the inspiration for her participation in the sport.
Jasmin goes to Maryland to study law. Zuri wants to become a veterinarian in high school.
“I told Jahmal he’s my role model,” Kyerra said. “There’s a lot going on in this world, but it was hardwired into us to help others in need. Jahmal is always the one who thinks before the thought comes out.”
(Top photo courtesy of Nebraska Athletics)
