In September 2023, LSU’s home game against Arkansas carried a weight far heavier than rivalry. Just a week earlier, team captain Greg Brooks Jr., who had once played for Arkansas before transferring to LSU, underwent emergency surgery to remove a brain tumor. What began as bouts of dizziness and nausea in August was first believed to be vertigo. However, an MRI revealed a tumor lodged between his cerebellum and brainstem. So in a deeply emotional gesture, LSU honored him by wearing No. 3 helmet stickers and painting his number on the decal in Tiger Stadium while playing against Arkansas.

But the surgery, post which he was declared cancer free, also left him permanently disabled; He had to start learning to speak, eat, and walk all over again. His family asserted in their lawsuit filed in Oct. 2024 that an unqualified surgeon conducted the operation. But things don’t stop here. In February, Greg Brooks Sr. claimed in an interview that the silence from the LSU coaching staff was deafening. “My son almost lost his life. Coach, where were you? My son almost lost his life,” to which HC Brian Kelly responded, “It is factually incorrect to state that I was not there by Greg’s side through this ordeal.”

“I was there on multiple occasions. We had somebody from my staff that was there virtually every single day,” he claimed. Yet in another interview with Ryan Clark from three days ago, the father doubled down on his initial thoughts, claiming that the HC wasn’t there for his son. This whole scenario pushed LSU insider Matt Moscono to share his thoughts on After Further Review: LSU on YouTube. Reacting to the statements the father made, he stated: “It is so impossible a circumstance. I empathize with Greg Senior, but I also understand Kelly’s perspective.”

“Even Ryan Clark, at that point in the interview [with Greg Brooks Sr.], says, ‘What about all the other players on the team that Brian Kelly is responsible for? He’s running a Giant football program’. Which is true. So on one hand, it’s factually inaccurate to say that Brian Kelly was never there. He was there four times. Think about the sequence of events.

“Greg Jr. gets diagnosed on a Thursday, he has surgery Friday. It’s the day before a football game. Brian Kelly is running this football program and I understand that Greg Brooks’ life means more than a football game… Play the game Saturday, he is at the hospital Sunday. Again I’m not excusing it because I’m empathetic toward Greg Senior…” Moscono then proceeded to share an example from his own life. His son is now 11 years old but when he was born, he had to undergo multiple surgeries. They spent almost nine months in the hospital, but would never forget who came to visit them. So he understands how Greg Brooks Sr. feels when he sees everyone’s lives moving on, but his own son is stuck in the hospital.

However, Ryan Clark, one of the people at the center of this Greg Brooks Jr. fiasco, was able to bring a very uncommon amount of serenity and sensibility to bear when the atmosphere between Greg Brooks Sr. and Brian Kelly was tense. Clark, close to both the Brooks family and LSU, did not merely act as referee; he reminded everyone that, of course, Brian Kelly has a football program to manage, which is sort of like herding cats in the SEC, but that is not to say he was absent from Brooks’ flank.

So Ryan Clark, in his interview with Brooks Sr., had accounted how he had seen Kelly and assistant coach Frank Wilson at the hospital. While all this has been going on, how has Greg Brooks Jr. dealt with his health?

Greg Brooks Jr. shared his experience…

Greg Brooks Jr.’s odyssey with his brain tumor diagnosis is the sort of thing that truly pulls the curtain down on the tinsel-laden facade of college football. Here’s a player who transferred to LSU, earned the title of team captain, and was ready to handle the defense, only to find himself battling an unexpected medical challenge. Things began to go wrong when Brooks started experiencing symptoms that no athlete should ever ignore: dizziness, confusion, and an overwhelming sense that something was off. He was not only training but also playing in games while this tumor grew in his brain.

Brooks himself wrote about how exasperating and frightening it was: he’d attempt normal football maneuvers and all of a sudden feel light-headed or lose his balance. That’s not merely difficult, that’s frightening. By the time somebody finally considered taking him to see a specialist, it had already been a month of experiencing these symptoms. The subsequent surgery aimed to be his saving grace, but it transformed into a nightmare, leading to strokes, significant neurological injury, and a challenging recovery journey.

Greg Jr. is a young man who transitioned from being in charge of LSU’s defense under the stadium lights to battling for his life in a hospital bed, all while experiencing symptoms dismissed until things got bad. The off-field drama, with his father complaining about Brian Kelly and the LSU staff for not being supportive, just adds to the debacle.