Tyrone McGraw was the kind of Stanford student everyone admired. He was a running back for two years before leaving the football team to focus on track, where he set a school indoor record in the 60 meters that still stands. McGraw studied abroad in Berlin and Oxford; he interned at the White House under the Obama administration; and he completed an externship for Ronald M. George, then chief justice of the California Supreme Court. He was beginning a career in public service when he was diagnosed in 2014 with a rare tumor that ran the length of his neck and ultimately robbed him of the use of his limbs.
Tyrone Leon McGraw, ’10, died June 18 in Sacramento of cancer. He was 29.
McGraw grew up in San Francisco’s gritty Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood with a single mother, Leona Banks, a nurse’s assistant. Banks didn’t want McGraw to find his role models on the streets, so she placed him in after-school sports and sent him to a private elementary school in a different neighborhood. McGraw continued his education at Archbishop Riordan High School, where he excelled in track and football and graduated as valedictorian. He was the first at the school to earn a Bill Gates Millennium Scholarship, which covered his college expenses.
At Stanford, McGraw majored in American studies with a concentration on law and urban America, graduating with honors. He later became a teaching fellow at Urban Prep Charter Academy for Young Men on the South Side of Chicago, and most recently served as a legislative aide to California Assemblymember Tony Thurmond, focusing on health and human services.
In 2016, McGraw spoke to the graduating class of Riordan and revealed he had been born with crack cocaine in his system and that his father was incarcerated at the time. He also told the audience that Leona Banks was actually his father’s sister, rather than his biological mother. Banks died of cancer when McGraw was 15; four months later, his godfather, Brad Hallett, who was one of his new caregivers, died of a stroke. During that speech, McGraw also revealed that he had cancer. He told the students that they had to believe in themselves even when no one else did, without excuses, tears or sadness.
“Tyrone remained his true beautiful self until his very last day—loving, caring and selfless,” says his girlfriend, Mayte Sanchez. “He literally spent every day since his diagnosis focusing on, one, his physical health; and, two, how he could make the most impact on the world given that he likely had limited time and declining mobility. In the end, that’s all that mattered to him. He wanted to leave this world a better place.”
McGraw is survived by his father, Tyrone Keith McGraw, and five siblings.
Julie Muller Mitchell, '79, is a writer in San Francisco.
