Dying wish of player’s mother to come true Thursday at Myers Park football game

Before she died from Stage 4 colon cancer, Leta Withers asked her son, Geyer, for one last favor.

Leta Withers wanted to raise money for cancer research and to thank the Myers Park High family, which supported her through her more than two-year fight against the disease.

Thursday night, Leta’s wish will be fulfilled. Myers Park (6-0, 1-0) will play Butler (6-1, 2-0)in a Southwestern 4A game at the Mustangs’ home stadium, which is expected to be sold out.

A blue ribbon, the color for colon cancer support, will be painted at midfield, and the Mustangs’ players will wear white uniforms instead of their normal green. In the stands, Myers Park fans and students will wear white shirts. Many of them will wear special white shirts that will honor Leta’s fight.

“That was one of her last wishes,” Geyer Withers said this week of his mother, whom he called “Mamacita,” which is “dear little mother” in Spanish. “It’s been special to just see the response to it.”

Myers Park has sold the T-shirts all season. Athletics director Rick Lewis said the school has sold nearly 1,000 at $10 each. Leta Withers asked that half the proceeds go to colon cancer research, the other half to needy football families at a school, whose students are from some of Charlotte’s wealthiest and its poorest.

“She always had a special place in her heart for kids in our program who may not have had everything they needed,” said Myers Park coach Scott Chadwick. “Our kids pay for their pregame meals for the year, for example, and she sent in money for her son and two others.”

Leta Ann Morris Withers was 48 when she died July 7. She learned she had cancer after a colonoscopy in the spring of 2014.

“The results came back and she said she had cancer, and that’s something that nobody should have to go through,” Geyer Wither said of his mother. “That’s the worst thing you can hear, especially coming out of your mother’s mouth. It’s been difficult.”

Leta Withers graduated from West Charlotte High and UNC Chapel Hill. She and Adams were married 21 years. After being diagnosed with cancer, friends said she was an outspoken leader in the local cancer community, considering herself part of the “Colontown Welcome Wagon.” Toward the end, when the cancer spread to her lungs, she and her brother, Charles, visited a local car dealership and bought her dream car, a Mini Cooper convertible.

In her obituary, the family wrote, “She was wheeling and dealing up to the end.”

At Myers Park, Chadwick said he was amazed at how -- for such a large and diverse school -- the Mustangs’ school community supported the Withers’ family through the toughest of times.

“I’m sure,” he said, “that they went months without cooking dinner.”

Chadwick has seen all of this up close. For most of the past year, Geyer Withers has dated Chadwick’s daughter, Madison, a 16-year-old junior cheerleader at Myers Park.

“As a dad, I don’t know that you necessarily want your daughter dating any guy,” Chadwick said, “but I joke with Geyer all the time that if I was going to have one of my players date my daughter, that he would probably be one of the few that I would’ve OK’d.”

Geyer, a 17-year-old senior, is a straight-A student, and knew what he was getting himself into when he asked Madison to dinner last year.

“I never really said anything to (Chadwick) about it,” Geyer said. “He just figured it out. It made it a little weird at first. My teammates always mess with me. They’re like, ‘You better not do anything wrong.’”

Chadwick said he admires how well the teenager has handled his mother’s death.

“He’s a very popular kid in our program,” Chadwick said. “His family has been a big part of our program for four years. He’s a great young man. For me, looking from the outside, the hardest thing for him in all this is the fact that’s he’s got two younger brothers (Sullivan and Payson).

“I worry about the burden that comes from that. But boy, it’s been remarkable how well he’s handled all this.”

Withers was a backup cornerback to start the season and led the team in special-teams tackles. At rival Providence in the Mustangs’ third game, he received additional playing time after injuries to fellow defensive backs. His interception set up the Mustangs’ first score. But he sustained a high ankle sprain and has missed the past three games.

Thursday night will be his first game back in uniform since the injury. And as he’s done all season, Geyer said he will write “Momacita” on the tape that covers his wrists, and then he’ll play as hard as he can to honor her.

“When I made that interception at Providence,” he said through tears, “I knew that was my mom. And I want to thank so many people. It’s the support that everybody gives and the care and attention that they give me and my family, whether it’s delivering meals or helping with groceries or just asking how I’m doing and checking up on me and making sure everything’s OK. It really means a lot.”

This story was originally published October 5, 2016 at 6:47 PM with the headline "Dying wish of player’s mother to come true Thursday at Myers Park football game."