When Harrison Mevis swung his right leg and drove a football 61 yards through the goalposts in the North end zone of Faurot Field giving Missouri a 30-27 win over No. 15 Kansas State on Saturday, more than 60,000 fans erupted and many of them spilled on to the turf to celebrate a victory that may have been tempting to call miraculous.
In the football coaches’ offices more than 120 yards away above the south end zone, there were two people who will probably reserve the word miracle for occasions a little more impactful than a football game. Eventually, Martez Manuel and Kaytlyn Gabriel made their way down to the turf to celebrate the win with the horde, perhaps against their better judgment or at least that of a doctor, just searching for a few minutes of normalcy after a summer that has turned their worlds upside down.
Your early twenties are a time of transition. Martez Manuel knew that transition was coming. He played his final football game for the University of Missouri the day after Thanksgiving. The next few months were all about preparing for that next step.
Manuel, a Columbia native and Rock Bridge High School graduate, didn’t hear his name called in April’s NFL Draft, but was invited to the Kansas City Chiefs minicamp in early May. Less than a week later, two days before he graduated from Mizzou, the Chiefs released him.
The very morning he walked across the stage to receive his degree, the couple, who have been together for three years, found out Gabriel was pregnant.
“That was a shock, but also super exciting,” the 21-year-old Gabriel said. “I don’t know, I’ve said kids come when you need them, not when you expect them.”
“I was about to graduate, just got cut, didn’t know what was next. Didn’t know where I was going,” Manuel, 22, said. “I always told (my family) I wanted to have kids when I was done with school. So we find out the day I graduate, which was insane.”
In early summer, Gabriel noticed some swelling in her neck. She monitored it and it didn’t go away. It got bigger. About two months after she first noticed the lump, she started having pain while swallowing. She told her doctor about it during a regular pregnancy checkup.
The response: “That’s not normal.”
Gabriel had an ultrasound. Then a biopsy. Then multiple MRIs.
“There was probably three weeks we were told it could be something, but they couldn’t certify it was cancer,” Manuel said. “There was a lot of just hoping that it wasn’t.”
It was. Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Stage 2.
Gabriel is a year younger than Manuel. She grew up in Kansas City. She grew up in a Mizzou family, always watched the football games and attended many. She took a trip to Columbia with some friends one weekend, one of whom knew a young safety on the Tiger football team. She met Manuel and they hung out for a while that weekend. It would be fun for this story if it was love at first sight. It was not.
“I always tell people I thought she was annoying when I first met her,” Manuel says, sitting next to KG, as all her friends call her, on the couple’s couch for a Zoom conversation.
A few weeks after that first meeting, Missouri upset defending national champion LSU thanks in large part to a goal line stand by Manuel and the Tiger defense.
“After the LSU game Martez was in the newspaper, the front cover of it,” Gabriel said. “I sent him a picture of it and then after that we just continued to talk and have been together ever since.”
Their first school year together wasn’t a normal one. The fall of 2020 was still heavily impacted by COVID on college campuses across the country. Most classes weren’t being held in person. It was a really tough time to meet someone…but a really good time to get to know someone you’d already met.
“We honestly got to hang out a lot,” Gabriel said. “We didn’t go to class in person so we just sat there and did classes with each other. The first time we hung out was doing homework together.”
“We would have football practice and then would just go home,” Manuel added. “Other than Saturdays or Friday nights traveling, there was nothing else to do.”
The relationship blossomed. They stayed together for the rest of Manuel’s time at Mizzou. He graduated in May. She still had a semester to go. They weren’t sure what was next, but they were getting ready to go out and attack life—and parenthood—together.
Then came the next sharp turn: KG's diagnosis.
According to the American Cancer Society, Stage 2 (there are four) means one of the following is true: Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is found in two or more lymph node areas on the same side of (above or below) the diaphragm, which is the thin muscle beneath the lungs that separates the chest and abdomen or the cancer extends locally from one lymph node area into a nearby organ.
Gabriel was 21 years old and a few months pregnant. She hadn’t finished school and her boyfriend was looking for a job.
“Just very frustrated,” Manuel said. “It had just been a hard summer. I got cut from the Chiefs. We honestly weren’t seeing a lot of positives. When we found out that news it was just like a cherry on top of that.
“I feel like I was trying to figure out how do I be strong for her, but still be worried, but not show her that I’m worried?”
The doctors at the University of Kansas Medical Center (yes, the die-hard Mizzou fans are being treated at KU Med; don’t worry, we’ll get to that) told Gabriel there is an 80 to 90% cure rate for cases like hers. That’s a number that seems really high if it’s someone else. It’s a number that can be daunting when you’re the patient.
“I’ve just tried to look at the positives more than the negatives. For me it’s like that other 10% or 20% I don’t even care about,” Gabriel said. “(The doctor) thinks that it’s going to be totally fine. There’s always worries, but now we’re focusing on the positive. Now I’m like, let’s do this. I’m strong and I’m going to beat it.”
Gabriel is doing all of her classwork online this semester. She said her professors have been incredibly understanding since her diagnosis. Manuel interned in the operations department at Sporting Kansas City, the local professional soccer club, this summer. He was just recently offered a job with New York Life Insurance and has spent recent days studying for the test he will have to take. Gabriel started chemotherapy on Tuesday, something she’ll do twice a month for six months.
The young couple has taken some blows over the last three months. But they’ve moved past the initial shock and frustration. They’ve learned a lot about the people that love them and how much they love each other.
“We have gotten to spend a lot of time together and got a lot closer now cause we’re in Kansas City. My family’s here, but other than that, we don’t really have that many people here,” Gabriel said. “This summer we’ve just gotten super close and I told him this is the happiest I’ve ever been in our relationship. Just getting to see his support for me and how much he cares. There’s sometimes where I’m like, 'I’m going to lose my hair and I don’t feel like I’ll be pretty’ and he says ‘No matter what I’m going to be here for you.’”
“We had a lot of things not go our way this summer, not go how we planned or how anyone planned,” Manuel said. “Things that weren’t supposed to happen happened to us and I just feel like I’ve learned so much about KG because she’s stuck with me through it all and she’s been my biggest supporter.”
This summer was his chance to swap roles.
“I just try to do whatever I can around the house, make her soup or tea or whatever I can to ease her mind and just give her positive self talk.
“Everyone we’ve talked to who has done cancer has been like it’s completely mental and how you have to be mentally strong to conquer all this stuff. Now, we’re doing a lot better and just trying to have a glass half full mindset and control and what we can control.”
Gabriel wasn’t sure how to go about letting everyone know about the diagnosis. She hadn’t even told most people she was going to have a baby.
“I waited for a while to put the news out there just because I wasn’t sure how it would go or how I kind of wanted to go about it,” Gabriel said. “I haven’t announced that we’re having a baby and I also haven’t announced that I have cancer. So I’m just like, I’m going to do it all at one time and we’ll see where it goes.”
Where it has gone is to unleash an outpouring of support that both may have hoped for, but of which neither was certain. Last week, some friends organized a campaign on the website MealTrain. The page’s organizer is Brett Mordecai. The idea was that Manuel is about to start a new job, Gabriel would be spending a lot more time at home and not feeling well. If friends could raise a few hundred dollars to help pay for food or could sign up to bring a meal by their apartment in Overland Park, at least one worry would be off their plates.
When Manuel and Gabriel woke up on Tuesday morning to prepare for her first round of chemo, it was at a couple hundred dollars. The original goal was $2500. By Wednesday night, that goal had been reset and surpassed twice. Right now, it is just shy of $13,000.
“I just want everyone to know how thankful we are,” Gabriel said. “Even if it’s just a thought or prayer or positive vibes, I really appreciate anything.”
“It really opened our eyes to how many friends and family (we have) and how many people that support us in Columbia,” Manuel added. “I’ve really been thankful for all of my friends and former teammates who helped raise awareness. I want to just do my part to help her. I know a lot of people support me so I can use that same influence to help support her and get her better.”
Some of the chief supporters have been those Manuel and Gabriel ran across in their combined years in Columbia. Gabriel babysat for a lot of kids around Columbia as a college student, including the children of a lot of Mizzou’s football coaches. They’ve reached out and offered baby supplies and any assistance they can provide. She was on the Homecoming committee for two years at Mizzou and was in charge of the annual Homecoming blood drive in 2022.
“It’s kind of crazy,” she said. “Last year this time I was planning a blood drive and this year my doctors are talking about, if worse come to worse, I could need a blood transfusion. It’s just so crazy how life comes full circle. The reason you do things is to help people.”
Manuel, like many Mizzou athletes and more than quite a few because he is from Columbia, became somewhat of a local celebrity over his four years as a Tiger. The couple hasn’t asked for a lot, didn’t even share their situation for quite a while. But Manuel did make one call last week to his former coach. KG wanted to go to a game, but she isn’t supposed to be around large crowds of people for extended periods of time because she is immunocompromised and pregnant.
“We’ll take care of that,” Eli Drinkwitz told Manuel. “We were able to take care of him and put him up in the south end zone, they watched it from the coaches offices. I know I saw him and KG on the field afterward.”
Drinkwitz wasn’t Missouri’s coach when Manuel signed with the Tigers out of Rock Bridge. He took over after Manuel’s freshman season. His first huge win at Mizzou was that LSU game that led to KG sending Martez the picture of him on the front page of the newspaper. He might have topped it on Saturday with the 30-27 win at the gun over the Wildcats. Fitting, somehow, that Manuel and Gabriel were there to see it.
“It’s bigger than football,” Drinkwitz said. “Obviously in the moment you know guys from a football setting, but if you’re in this thing long enough you have relationships with guys that you coached ten, 15, 20 years ago and help them walk through different stages in life. That’s kind of what’s going on now with him.
“They’re to the fighting stage now.”
Gabriel’s fight, with Manuel by her side, is just starting. It’s the two of them, like it’s been for more than three years, and about to be the three of them. They don’t have an exact due date. With Gabriel’s cancer, an early delivery might be necessary.
“We’re going every two weeks to the doctor and see how everything is,” Gabriel said. “We’re going to make sure the baby stays in as long as possible and welcome it whenever he or she wants to come.”
They both said they’ve always wanted to be parents. It may not be happening when they planned it and they certainly didn’t expect to be battling cancer at the same time they were preparing to have a child. But you don’t always get to choose what life throws at you.
“I’ve had a lot of positive male role models in my life my later teen years, but earlier than that I had a lot of negative male influences in my life,” Manuel said. “I’m just looking forward to being able to just be a father figure and set an example and break some stereotypes that are there about my culture and my people.”
“Knowing that I have someone actually with me and I’m actually fighting for someone besides myself has given me motivation and knowing that after this is all over we’ll look back one day and I’ll be like ‘Look what we went through,’” Gabriel said. “One of the things I’m going to do during chemo is write a letter every week so whenever the baby is older he or she can look back on it and know this is what mom did and also the baby was there with me and going through this hard time with me.”
They’ve already gotten the baby its first Mizzou shirt. By hook or by crook, they’ll raise a Tiger fan in enemy territory, mere minutes from Lawrence, Kansas.
“Oh my God,” Manuel said. “That’s been the toughest part about living out here is that there’s so many KU fans it’s ridiculous.”
KG said he gets looks wearing his Mizzou gear around Overland Park.
“I do not like KU at all, but now that these doctors and everyone are helping us,” Gabriel said. “After this, if my kid goes to KU, I’ll be okay with it.”
Rivalries and not-so-serious allegiances aside, they don’t know exactly what the next few months hold. But they’re ready.
“It’s been a hectic, crazy summer,” Martez said. “I just really appreciate her and I think that she’s so strong. I’m super excited to see what kind of kid we’ll have. With two parents that are really determined and strong to get through anything, I think we’re setting up that kid for a lot of success.”
Donate to the MealTrain fund for Martez and KG here
A link to the fund is also included in Martez and KG's Instagram bios.
KG: @its.kgg
Martez: @god.fearing.man
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