8 years, 5 schools and a career-threatening condition: The story of Tyon Grant-Foster

Tyon Grant-Foster never loses faith.

With Gonzaga down double-digits to underdog Seattle on Jan. 2, the veteran did not waver. He helped the Bulldogs claw back in the second half, making a game-saving block on the perimeter to force overtime before finishing with 19 points.

"It's crazy, I've never had a guy like that that can just challenge a shot and block it," Gonzaga coach Mark Few said about the 6-foot-7 forward following the win. "You don't see very many perimeter blocked shots."

Grant-Foster developed that resilience over the course of an eight-year college basketball career complicated by a heart condition that led to two collapses -- and cost him nearly two entire seasons.

By the time he turns 26 in March, Grant-Foster will have suited up for five different schools. His journey has included two seasons at Indian Hills Community College, one at Kansas -- his dream program, where he saw limited play (8.1 minutes per game) -- then a fraction of one at DePaul, where he played just a half-game before his first collapse in 2021. After collapsing a second time three months later -- and missing the 2022-23 season -- Grant-Foster secured clearance from his doctors at the Mayo Clinic and made his way back to the court for two seasons at Grand Canyon.

Grant-Foster needed NCAA approval for one more year at Gonzaga, though. Having spent nearly two years fighting for another opportunity to play the sport he loves, a courtroom battle with the NCAA did not scare him. After it denied his eligibility waiver request, a judge granted him a preliminary injunction, allowing him to play this season.

"If you know my story," Grant-Foster said. "you know I didn't ask for any of this to happen."

In a controversial era that has allowed former G League players, NBA draft picks and international pros to secure eligibility, the question about who deserves second chances -- for a player who has already had several of them -- was at the center of Grant-Foster's push for a final season. He was fighting for a starting spot on a No. 8 Gonzaga squad with realistic Final Four aspirations (Grant-Foster is third in scoring with 11.3 points per game).

"As I told him before, sometimes you have to sit, be patient and just wait on your time," said Kim Mitchell, a parental figure to Grant-Foster in high school. "When you're patient, things should work. Most of the time, it'll work out in your favor."

Since his childhood, Grant-Foster never slowed down.

When a young Grant-Foster got tired of running around his house in Kansas City, Kansas, he asked his mother and father to sign him up for a local sports team. When they didn't match his urgency, he walked to the park himself and brought them the paperwork.

"He kept bugging us to get him on the team," said Talisha Grant, his mother. "We didn't move fast enough, so he went and found a team on his own."

Grant-Foster loved to challenge his friends in marathon video game battles and late-night shootarounds. It never mattered when or where. At any moment, he could ask you to drop to the floor for a race to 25 pushups. That tenacity bled into the gym, where he blossomed into the No. 1 junior college player in America after two years at Indian Hills Community College -- and, eventually, worthy of a scholarship from Kansas.

Almost from the start, it wasn't a fit. He saw limited time, averaging just 3.1 points in Lawrence. After one tough game with the Jayhawks, a frustrated Grant-Foster kept walking through the parking lot even as his mother called his name. He seemed almost in a daze.

"He was confused most of the time and the system just wasn't a good fit for him," Reese Holliday, Grant-Foster's mentor and trainer, said about his stint at Kansas. "That's really all it came down to. I just said, 'Next time, this next decision, we've got to go somewhere where we know what we're getting,' which led to DePaul."

The Blue Demons offered Grant-Foster a chance to start over and restore his confidence. After a summer working out with the squad, he felt like himself again before the 2021-22 season.

Only 20 minutes into his debut, everything changed.

Grant-Foster had just made a go-ahead 3-pointer in the season opener against Coppin State. When he headed for the locker room at halftime, he collapsed in the tunnel. The school's medical team surrounded him as he briefly regained consciousness, while he asked what the fuss was all about and why everyone was standing around him instead of preparing for the second half. Then he lost consciousness again.

DePaul's medical staffers began CPR so intense Grant-Foster later complained about severe pain from the compressions. It took three rounds of shocks from an automated external defibrillator before he was resuscitated.

"Essentially, in cardiac arrest, you lose a pulse and your heart stops beating," said Michael Sommer, the DePaul trainer who performed CPR on Grant-Foster. "So you don't have much time to do CPR, keep the heart pumping and try your best to restore life. You're trying to keep him alive."

Grant-Foster had no recollection of the collapse.

"When I woke up, it was like I didn't know what was going on," he said. "I felt normal and everything. I just remember waking up, everybody was around me and then I had to get into an ambulance and go to the hospital."

After a 10-day stint between two Chicago hospitals, Grant-Foster learned he had scarring on his heart from a genetic condition called arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy and needed an implanted defibrillator. Doctors framed the stakes with sobering advice: Pick up a set of golf clubs instead because the chance of playing basketball again didn't seem like a reality.

"My son heard that and that was probably the first time in a long time that I saw tears drop out of his eyes," Talisha Grant said. "There was this wail that came from my son that I had never heard before that I'm not going to forget."

The defibrillator didn't prevent another incident, though. It didn't help that, according to those around him, Tyon did not always heed doctors' warnings such as other young athletes recovering from injuries, but continued to push the limits, still challenging others to push-up contests.

Three months after his first incident, while recovering at home in Kansas City, Grant-Foster collapsed again while playing pickup with former Jayhawks teammate and now Denver Nuggets guard Christian Braun. Grant-Foster would need another surgery to have more scarring removed.

DePaul refused to clear him after the second collapse, offering support if he wanted to be a coach or have another role with the program, but casting doubt on his playing future.

Grant-Foster was once again preparing for life without basketball.

In his time off the court, he turned to movies such as "Training Day," "Pursuit of Happyness" and "King Arthur" for inspiration on overcoming adversity. They also were distractions and stories that ended with good guys winning. He spent those months hoping he would get a chance to win again, too.

That chance came on March 30, 2023 -- more than a year after his second collapse -- when Grant-Foster finished a Zoom call with his new team of doctors at the Mayo Clinic. They gave him the news he had been waiting for: the green light to resume his career.

As soon as the call ended, Grant-Foster grabbed his shoes and shorts and headed toward the gym.

He had to make sure he would be OK on the court again.

"I prayed and I ran, and I just didn't think about it," he said about those first moments back on the floor. "Whenever I got tired, I took a break, but whenever I had to do sprints, I would run hard -- as hard as I could -- just because if you think about certain things, you're going to hold yourself back. You're never going to get into that shape you've got to get into. If your heart rate isn't getting up, how is it going to get there when you need it to? So I just didn't think about it."

Grand Canyon head coach Bryce Drew understood the risk.

Drew had watched his brother, Scott, the head coach at Baylor, wade through situations involving multiple players with heart issues. Former Final Four hero Jared Butler had been diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in high school. Former Baylor standouts Isaiah Austin and King McClure, now an ESPN analyst, had dealt with career-altering heart issues, too.

Those experiences prepared Bryce Drew for a pitch from a former assistant, Jamall Walker, who knew Grant-Foster from their circles in Kansas City and praised his potential. Drew was willing to offer him a second chance.

After Grand Canyon worked with Grant-Foster's doctors at the Mayo Clinic to get him ready to play, he showcased all of the potential he had never had an opportunity to display. A full 726 days after his first and only game at DePaul, Grant-Foster scored 30 points for Grand Canyon in a season-opening win over Southeast Missouri State.

"By that first game, we didn't quite know what to expect," said Walker, a former Grand Canyon assistant. "And then he shot out like a cannon. I think he scored 20 points in the first half, and I think he shocked himself. He was doing high-fives with the people in the stands."

He scored 25 or more points in 10 games that season, earning 2023-24 Western Athletic Conference Player of the Year honors. He led No. 12-seeded Grand Canyon to its first NCAA tournament victory with 22 points in an upset of No. 5 Saint Mary's in the first round.

He was hindered by an ankle injury in his second season but still managed to help the Lopes reach the NCAA tournament for the fourth time in program history.

When Gonzaga began recruiting him, it was impossible not to listen. Grant-Foster had always dreamed of playing in the NBA, and Few had produced a dozen first-round picks.

"That's the level that I want to be at," Grant-Foster said about his commitment to Gonzaga. "And Coach Few has been around that. He's coached players that have been there."

Gonzaga's team physicians worked with Grant-Foster's cardiologist to prepare him for a final season. "The medical collaboration started long before he showed up on campus," said Josh Therrien, a team trainer.

Still, Grant-Foster would need another year of eligibility -- and the NCAA denied the request the team made on his behalf. He found himself in yet another fight for his future nearly four years after he first collapsed. This time, he had the support of a coach who believed he could be the player needed for the program's first national title.

"It's just been a really tough deal. He's an incredible guy. He's got an incredible story," Few said. "I've now been coaching college for 31 years. I know it's a hard situation for the NCAA with all of these waivers that happen to be out there. But I've never seen one as unique as this. He literally died. His heart stopped, not once but twice when he was on the floor. They're just wrong on this one."

Gonzaga builds camaraderie with trips to local sushi and steakhouse outlets. This season, they've also focused on developing chemistry with their new teammate Grant-Foster.

For months, those meals were their only way to connect with Grant-Foster, who was barred from practice after the NCAA denied his waiver request and before his lawyer sued for an injunction.

The years before molded him into a resilient competitor, though. He had heard the word "no" when he didn't qualify to play Division I basketball after high school. He heard it again after he collapsed -- twice -- and nearly lost the ability to play his favorite sport. He refused to accept it from the NCAA, too.

In October, Grant-Foster stood in a courtroom and smiled as Spokane County Judge Marla Polin granted him an injunction to play, with Few sitting a few rows back.

"I wasn't really clear on everything," Grant-Foster said. "So at first I asked my lawyer when the judge was speaking, 'Is this good?' He was like, 'It's really good.' And then once she said the verdict and everything, I was just like, 'Thank you. I appreciate you.' Because it was a long process."

After the verdict, he and Few drove back to campus for an exhibition game against Western Oregon. During the car ride, Grant-Foster sent his mentor Holliday a text message: "We're green."

At the arena, Few scrapped his pregame speech to allow Grant-Foster to enjoy the moment with his teammates.

"It was pure joy," Gonzaga star Graham Ike said. "Just to have our brother join us and be able to come out with us just after everything that he had been through, especially through the court situation and his heart situation, as well."

When he ran onto the court for the first time, the building erupted.

Grant-Foster had played college basketball at Kansas and DePaul during the height of the COVID pandemic, so it was the first time he had ever experienced a real crowd -- and the thousands gathered were all cheering for him.

"It's the resilience that he's had," said Tarrance Crump, a former DePaul assistant. "How he bounced back and stayed the course."

Now, the Bulldogs have a player who could be one of the reasons they cut down the nets in April. He was averaging 11.3 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.2 blocks heading into Wednesday's game against Pepperdine. He's rated as an "excellent" defender on Synergy Sports, contributing to the best defense Few has had at Gonzaga in five years.

"He can get downhill super easy, he can shoot the ball," said Braden Huff, a junior forward currently sidelined with a knee injury. "He's a three-level scorer, and then defensively, he's blocking shots, just disrupting things on that end, so he does a bunch for us, and his energy day in, day out is huge."

For those who have experienced Grant-Foster's journey, every moment he's on the court feels surreal.

For the 25-year-old who has lived it, this conclusion always seemed possible.

He never lost hope.

"I feel like some people don't really understand how uncontrollable the circumstances were for me. It's not just a regular injury where you can rehab back from this," Grant-Foster said. "So when sometimes I see people judging me like, 'Oh, he's older' and all of this, but you really just don't know what I had to go through to even get back to playing basketball again."