Former gang member brought joy to TCC, Tacoma

Everyone noticed at least three things about Tony McCane.

His smile was so bright it could power a city. He was joyous of spirit and strong of faith.

When the lifelong Tacoman, father, college student, tutor, coach and mentor died last week of pneumonia at 33, the world lost a charismatic, consciousness-raising soul, friends and family members said.

Anthony Troy “Tony” McCane could do more and live better in his wheelchair than many people who have use of their legs, faculty advisers, teachers, students and fellow tutors believe.

The one-time gang member and convicted felon, paralyzed by five gunshots in a 2002 drug incident, inspired and enlightened people from one end of Tacoma Community College to the other, English instructor Lynn Lewellen said.

He was a man who radiated “and defined joy,” she added. He was handsome, suave, cool.

He entered TCC in 2006, scared, intimidated and lacking basic English skills, Lewellen said. But he was industrious, loved learning and was fun to teach.

It wasn’t long before he was mentoring other students in the Writing & Tutoring Center.

He was so spectacular, his triumphs so huge, Lewellen compared him to “Rocky,” the Sylvester Stallone movie character who wins self-respect in the battle of his life.

“He took that situation where he was in a wheelchair, and he used it to improve himself – and to improve others,” said Paul Goetzinger, assistant director of the college’s Center for Academic Support and Achievement.

“He had joy in his heart every day,” said close friend Dave Wellsbury, who also works in the college facilities department. “And a million-dollar smile. If anybody had a million-dollar smile, it was Tony.”

McCane brought wheelchair basketball to a TCC game “to show that anyone can play basketball,” said Margaret Robinson, coordinator of the college’s Multi-Ethnic Cultural Affairs program.

When she worked at McCarver Elementary School a few years ago, he coached kids after school and spoke to them of motivation and meaning in their lives.

“He was inspirational,” she said.

A DIFFERENT LIFE BEFORE

What you would not know, unless he chose to tell you, was that Tony McCane led a chaotic life growing up on Tacoma’s Hilltop.

He didn’t speak often, friends say, about the dysfunctional family of his youth. Didn’t brag about the glories he knew as a Golden Gloves boxing champion and U.S. team member in the 1990s.

He didn’t dwell on slipping into gang life. Or his arrests for drugs, robbery, theft, reckless driving and other charges. Or the time he served in prison.

And when he talked about life in a wheelchair, it wasn’t pity he sought. The chair was his platform for “If-I-can-do-it-so-can-you” speeches. And it was an in-your-face lesson on the consequences of gang life.

“We lead by example,” he said Nov. 10 during a forum on youth violence sponsored by the City of Seattle’s television station. “We can only control one person.”

Speaking directly to at-risk youths, McCane added that if you don’t recognize who’s getting into trouble, who’s getting arrested, and stay away, “you’re gonna be victimized.” Gang violence, he intoned, is “a madness” that left three of his childhood friends dead and him in a wheelchair.

Getting shot, he added, “was my big wake-up call. … I had given up too much.”

“There is no glory in the gang life, in drug life,” he said. “They’re all a dead-end road. It costs your life. It cost me my whole lower half.”

His main message: “If we stand together, we can make a change.”

It was delivered just weeks before he entered St. Joseph Medical Center, where he lost a two-month medical battle Wednesday.

Fellow student Ann Williams, whom McCane tutored, wrote a poem called “Miracle Man” about him as he “lay in God’s hands.”

“He opened up doors in my mind to think about things in a different way,” the 36-year-old student said. While working, fittingly, on a piece about second chances, McCane taught her to be “more descriptive, to get more to the raw and ugly” of her experiences with drugs, she added.

He helped her take stock of her convictions and feelings, she said, by telling her: “This is a part of your life. You own it.”

He cared so much, he yelled good-naturedly but tough-mindedly at students who skipped class or showed up late, Lewellen said.

“He would say, ‘I just don’t get it, that they just squander opportunities.’”

Fellow TCC tutor Becca Denton said: “I could tell he was a Christian even without him wearing a cross. He just had that presence.”

McCane coached for Metro Parks and the Amateur Athletic Union, teaching not only athletics but talking to his Dream Teams about the pitfalls of life, bringing in guests from groups including Planned Parenthood, said his wife, Resa. He dreamed of a “disability gym” for veterans disabled by war and others who needed it, lived his faith and worked every day for change in the world, she added.

“He had a vision that everybody comes together for one purpose, and that’s to save our youth,” she said. “He never complained. He continued, he persevered.”

Besides his wife, other survivors include his children, Anthony, 14, LaMarkus, 10, and Adoriah, 7.

Kris Sherman: 253-597-8659

kris.sherman@thenewstribune.com

 • A public memorial service for Tony McCane is set for 1 p.m. Tuesday at Life Center, 1717 S. Union Ave., Tacoma.