Nebraska’s Jahmal Banks used his family hardship to find purpose

LINCOLN, Neb. — Before her first night on the streets, Jahmal Banks’ mother picked a family from their community of support for him to live alongside. Evicted from her Maryland home, Kristie Martin pleaded with 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 ensure his clothes were ironed before Jahmal walked into the classroom every morning 12 years ago. She wanted to know he’d eat a meal each night and that he had access to a table suitable for homework.

He said no.

“I told my mom, ‘I’m going 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, were left homeless in the wake of Kristie’s divorce from Jahmal’s stepfather. The marriage fell apart under unhealthy conditions, she said.

“It was spiritual, monetary, emotional and psychological,” Kristie said. “I didn’t get my eyes black or my teeth knocked out. When you’re hit, it can heal. For three years after that separation, I shut down from the world. What kept me going was my children. They are my joy. They are my four heartbeats.

“I lost everything. But I chose my children.”

Kristie’s oldest, Kyerra Martin, at the time, attended Bowie State in Maryland on an athletic scholarship, playing volleyball and softball. The rest of them, on that awful day, sat in Kristie’s Chevy Tahoe 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 decorated for her skills in response 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 sample bread and not know where I was going to lay my head.”

The first night, a friend took them in. Over several months that followed, Kristie and her three kids moved between hotels and a shelter around Washington, D.C. They witnessed the aftermath of a murder. She lost her steady job, Kristie said, to work at Safeway and Macy’s so she could accommodate the kids’ schedules from a displaced home.

At times, Kristie said she had to choose between buying gas and food.

Perseverance, she said, allowed Kristie to regain her footing.

“God placed certain people around us at certain times,” she said. “But it was a fight every day. I found strength that I didn’t know I had.”

Through that period, Kristie and her kids also saw the best in people. People who offered them a place to sleep. Or bought their meal unexpectedly at a restaurant.

It shaped Jahmal, who turns 23 next month. In his first season as a wide receiver at Nebraska, he fits as a team leader and one of the top targets of freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola. A Wake Forest transfer who caught 101 passes in the ACC over the past two years, Banks was the only offensive player at Nebraska in August to receive a single-digit jersey — awarded by a vote of players to their 10 toughest teammates.

“Tough” hardly begins to describe him.

“Jahmal is an anomaly,” Kristie Martin said. “Not because he’s my son. You don’t meet a kid like that maybe once every 15 to 20 years. He’s been through so much — and with no father. We have beat so many statistics. And for him to be academically and athletically inclined how he is, that gives me strength.”

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You won’t get an argument about Banks from Matt Rhule. After Rhule’s first team at Nebraska finished 5-7 and lost several key players, the coach plotted 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 in the offseason. Rhule did not expect, though, that a newcomer would walk in and raise the bar.

Banks set an example in training. But his primary impact came away from the workouts and the weight room.

“He’s one of the first guys I’ve ever seen — like, some guys say it — but he is here to affect other people,” Rhule said. “There’s not a day that I’m not blown away by his impact on people.

“He is an amazing, amazing person.”

Banks led Nebraska players in offseason community service hours, a number that’s tracked and rewarded with points to create a competitive environment within the team. He scored more in a single offseason than any player that 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 deeds that don’t score 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 in line behind him at Chipotle.

Why?

When his mother and sisters felt pain, Jahmal said he kept his feelings inside.

“He wanted to make sure we were good,” his sister Kyerra said. “That was just Jahmal.”

For him, an internal struggle ensued.

“At the end of the day, 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 — just wanting to do more for my family, wanting to be someone that they could count on to be there for them and to provide.”

Jahmal said he found purpose and the key to his identity at First Baptist Church in Northwest D.C. There, he developed a giving spirit that extends beyond his family.

It shines through in his first season at Nebraska. Like when he buys food for unsuspecting strangers.

Presented with opportunities to help people, Banks does not hesitate to bring full circle his experience from difficult times of his childhood.

“My son gives so much,” Kristie Martin said.

He grabbed a 21-yard touchdown pass in the first half of his Nebraska debut. Since, he has endured a quiet stretch. Through three games, he’s caught seven balls for 76 yards.

But the Huskers are 3-0 and ranked No. 22 as they prepare to face Illinois on Friday night in the Big Ten opener for both programs.

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“It’s perfect,” he said, “because I’m process-driven, not results-driven. I make it all about us. I just continue to enjoy the journey. It’s a battle all the time, but you’ve gotta just fall in love with the process.”

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Jahmal played the trumpet for several years and competed in lacrosse, basketball and football. In high school at Bishop O’Connell in Arlington, Virginia, he emerged as an elite prospect on the gridiron. Banks transferred as a senior to St. Frances Academy in Baltimore to play against top competition nationally.

Ivy League offers poured in. His mother wanted him to attend Penn. Jahmal was drawn to the lights of major-conference programs.

“For her, it was not the four-year plan,” Banks said. “It was the 40-year plan.”

They found a compromise in Wake Forest, a smaller, private school in a major conference. He sought a change after last season and expressed concern to Kristie that “there was no guarantee” as he looked at Nebraska, Wisconsin and Purdue.

“You’re the guarantee,” Kristie told Jahmal.

When Kristie met Rhule on their visit to Lincoln last winter, she said she “felt the passion” in him.

“Oh, my God, it was so different,” she said. “I knew that this was where he’s supposed to be. I felt like (Rhule) said what he meant and he was going to show me.”

Jahmal wasn’t about to start doubting his mother then.

“She gave, saved and changed my life,” Jahmal said. “You can look back, and in another timeline, Jahmal isn’t here. But in the timeline that was supposed to happen, he is here because of what she sacrificed.”

He has written, performed and released music about his life experiences.

He often ponders the turbulent road his family traveled.

“That’s in my mind,” Jahmal said. “I think about my sisters. I look back, and what I really want is not about money. It’s not fame. It’s about healing.”

Kristie has attended each of the Huskers’ three games at Memorial Stadium. She works again in the medical field and must miss the Friday game this week. She’ll be on site for the rest of them, along with various family members.

Meanwhile, Kyerra coaches volleyball at DuVal High School in Lanham, Maryland, and plays tackle football for the D.C. Divas as part of the Women’s Football Alliance.

She said she credits Jahmal as the inspiration for bid to compete in the sport.

Jasmin attends Maryland to study pre-law. Zuri, in high school, wants to become a veterinarian.

“I told Jahmal he’s my role model,” Kyerra said. “There’s a lot going on in this world, but it was embedded in us to help others in need. Jahmal is always the one who’s thoughtful before the thought comes out.”

(Top photo courtesy of Nebraska Athletics)