On Jan. 9, Tonja Stelly needed to be in two locations without delay. That’s nothing new to her. It’s develop into a practice over the previous three years, each time the NBA and NHL schedules collide in simply the appropriate manner.
The Knicks have been taking part in the Portland Path Blazers contained in the world’s most well-known area, Madison Sq. Backyard, that Tuesday. Her son Quentin Grimes, a guard with the Knicks on the time and presently with the Detroit Pistons, had a 7:30 p.m. tipoff. Twenty miles to the east, her son Tyler Myers, a defenseman for the Vancouver Canucks, had a recreation on the identical time, towards the New York Islanders in Elmont, N.Y.
So Tonja and her husband, Ken, alongside along with her brother and his household, hopped on a flight from Texas to New York. Tonja and Ken went to UBS Enviornment to observe Tyler, spending two hours bending their necks between the motion in entrance of them and the cellphone on her lap, which featured the Knicks recreation. Her brother and his household have been doing the identical factor at MSG, with the sounds of a basketball kissing the hardwood and the Canucks-Islanders recreation on a tiny display screen nestled in entrance of them.
“The folks sitting round us, in fact, have been like, ‘Wow! You’re actually into sports activities,’” Tonja stated. “We have been like, ‘Sure, sure we’re.’”
Everybody is aware of about Donna Kelce, the mom of NFL gamers Travis and Jason Kelce. Most individuals are conversant in Sonya Curry, the mom of NBA gamers Stephen and Seth Curry. Only a few, although, are conversant in Tonja Stelly, the mom of the one NBA-NHL brother tandem in historical past.
She’s a sports activities mother and former athlete herself, having performed basketball at Fort Hays State College again in her dwelling state of Kansas. Quentin and Tyler are her solely youngsters, and from October to April, she travels across the nation, bouncing between packed basketball arenas and frigid hockey arenas to see them compete.
She gave start to each in Houston 10 years aside — Tyler on Feb. 1, 1990, and Quentin on Could 8, 2000 — however they’ve completely different fathers. Because of this, they grew up aside in separate households, seeing each other just a few occasions a yr, if that.
“I used to be like a single youngster,” Quentin stated, recalling his upbringing.
Three months after Quentin was born, Tyler moved to Calgary together with his father, Paul, who was within the oil and fuel enterprise, and that’s the place the hockey took maintain. He had already began taking part in the game in Texas — round age 7 — however the sport’s ubiquity in Canada helped him dive deeper into the sport, which set him on a path to the NHL.
Within the summers, and generally throughout spring break, Tyler would journey again to Texas to spend time together with his mother and his little brother. Tonja would take them out to play tennis or basketball, swim or take journey bikes. They’d take annual 22-hour round-trip automotive rides to go see Tonja’s facet of the household in Kansas. She did all the pieces she may to verify her sons had a relationship, despite the fact that they lived, primarily, a rustic away from each other.
(Pictures courtesy of Tonja Stelly)
“It was very troublesome whenever you’ve solely bought six to eight weeks in the course of the summer time to place that collectively,” she stated. “However we might do issues as a household unit and individually.”
Issues like letting them play video video games collectively and take activates selecting the place to eat dinner.
“They’d choose various things being that Quentin was 4 and 5 after which Tyler was 14 and 15,” she stated.
As Tyler entered his teenage years, the calls for of junior hockey saved him away longer. However Tonja and Quentin would enterprise to Kelowna, B.C., to observe him play in junior and did the identical when he broke into the NHL. Quentin was 8 when the Buffalo Sabres chosen Tyler twelfth within the 2008 NHL Draft. At 6 toes 8 inches, he grew to become one of many tallest gamers in NHL historical past and rapidly made an impression for the Sabres, who made the playoffs his rookie season. Shortly after Quentin turned 10, Tyler gained the Calder Trophy for the league’s finest rookie. He completed within the high 20 for the Norris Trophy, which honors the league’s finest all-around defenseman, in every of his first two seasons.
The Sabres playoff sequence spurred Quentin’s appreciation for the game for greater than his affiliation to it by way of Tyler.
“I keep in mind seeing that ambiance, and I believe I took extra curiosity than the common Texan watching hockey,” he stated. “I inform folks on a regular basis, with playoff hockey, I don’t assume there’s a greater ambiance — banging on the glass, shoving, pushing, hip-checking, it’s tremendous fast-paced, folks throw stuff on the ice. They’re not doing that at a basketball recreation.” (Properly, until they’re Jamal Murray, however we digress.)
Round 9, Quentin started taking part in AAU basketball, and like his older brother, rapidly stood out amongst his friends. By highschool, it was obvious he’d comply with within the footsteps of his basketball-playing mother and father. Tonja Nuss was a 5-10 guard on the 1985-86 Fort Hays workforce that went 18-12. His father, Marshall Grimes, was a 6-foot guard for Santa Clara and Louisiana-Lafayette within the late Seventies and early Eighties.
As a five-star recruit, Quentin initially performed at Kansas earlier than transferring to Houston after his freshman season. There, he blossomed into the main scorer on the Cougars’ 2021 Remaining 4 workforce, resulting in him being chosen twenty fifth by the Knicks within the NBA Draft.
Solely so many individuals know what it takes to be knowledgeable athlete. And by chance for Quentin, his brother is one in all them. Tyler may share prepare like knowledgeable athlete, and eat like one. However he additionally needed to let Quentin “carve his personal path.”
“As an athlete, I do know I don’t wish to bombard him with an excessive amount of recommendation or an excessive amount of which may overwhelm him, however definitely little issues right here and there I’ll throw at him,” Tyler stated. “Even final month, I used to be studying this ebook and I forwarded him what it was all about and advised him to test it out. Simply little issues like that right here and there, that I believe may also help him out, and something that I’ve gone by means of alongside the best way.”
The NBA and NHL schedules don’t overlap in a simple manner for Tyler and Quentin to see one another play stay. “We sort of should preserve tabs on one another from afar,” Tyler stated.
However Quentin taking part in in New York to start his profession helped when the Canucks would swing by means of the town to play the Rangers, Islanders and Devils in succession. Tyler attended one in all Quentin’s dwelling video games a few years in the past, they usually shared a few dinners collectively.
“As you see them mature into adults and discover their manner, particularly since Tyler was gone at such a younger age, to see that circle again to them now as adults is fairly particular,” Tonja stated whereas preventing again tears. “Fairly particular.”
(Pictures courtesy of Tonja Stelly)
When Tyler spoke by telephone earlier this week, he was already excited for his mother and brother to come back to Vancouver this week for the Canucks’ second-round playoff sequence towards the Edmonton Oilers.
Equally as thrilling within the days main as much as Mom’s Day, Quentin will get to satisfy Tyler’s three youngsters (Tristan, Skylar and Tatum) for the primary time.
“It’ll be superior,” Tyler stated prematurely of the go to. “The children will get to satisfy their uncle, and it’ll be nice for them to attach.”
For Tonja, who helped elevate two boys with completely different cultural backgrounds, pursuits and upbringings, “It’s a reasonably particular weekend.”
What may very well be extra particular?
Properly, Quentin has one yr left on his contract with the Pistons at $4.2 million and will probably re-sign long run. Tyler is pulling in $6 million this season and is about to develop into a free agent July 1.
Lots must line up, nevertheless it’s awfully tempting to surprise if Tonja’s sons may at some point name the identical area and the identical metropolis dwelling. In spite of everything, the Detroit Purple Wings may probably be available in the market for a right-handed defenseman this summer time.
“I believe they (may use one), too,” Tonja stated with amusing. “That might be so superior.”
(Photograph illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photographs courtesy of Tonja Stelly )