'Happiest kid' continues to inspire his brother, St. Edward's teams
ROCKY RIVER, Ohio -- Matt Orbany is a young man who believes he's going places, and he doesn't care if he's carrying a pen, a water bottle or one of those fancy football play cards -- or even some combination of the three -- as he goes.
He knows he'll be carrying his brother's memory.
Matt Orbany is a senior at Lakewood St. Edward High School, just outside of Cleveland. He's a team manager for the St. Edward football team that won Ohio's big-school state title earlier this month and a statistician/manager for the basketball team that won the state title last March.
Michael Orbany was a pretty big fan of both teams. He treasured his St. Edward foam finger and a closet full of St. Edward t-shirts.
On May 1, Michael Orbany died after a four-year battle with metastatic medulloblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor. He was nine.
On May 4, Matt Orbany turned 17. In August, Matt will head to Holy Cross College in South Bend, Indiana. That's intended as a detour on his way to the better-known institution across the street, Notre Dame, where he hopes to serve as a student manager or some other kind of football assistant, and he believes his time at Notre Dame will launch a career in the National Football League as a coach, a scout or salary-cap manager.
"I want to live my life for my brother," Matt Orbany said. "He'd want me to do what I want to do, and that's work in football.
"Mike told me before he left that he knew we would win a state title in football before I graduated. During the season the whole team told me we were going to win this for him. We did. I know he was up there watching."
**
Steve Orbany had been a football player and wrestler at St. Edward. Though Georgianne Orbany also graduated from a Cleveland-area high school, she and Steve didn't meet until years later. Work took them to Houston as a young married couple, then brought them back Columbus, Ohio and they eventually bought the house in which Steve had grown up in suburban Rocky River to raise their two boys.
Michael Orbany takes the field with the St. Edward's High School football team.
Steve coached Matt in football growing up, but a weightlifting injury in the spring of his freshman year led the family to a decision that Matt would give up football.
"A spinal fracture is not something to screw around with," Steve Orbany said. "Matthew hated it, but it just wasn't worth it."
Matt struggled as a freshman with the injury, with the transition from Rocky River Schools to the all-boys St. Edward and with his brother's diagnosis. What started as vomiting episodes and headaches for Michael eventually revealed a tumor. The family saw countless doctors, set up shop in the Cleveland Clinic, started Michael on radiation treatments and hoped for the best.
What the Orbanys never got was an answer.
"Just that we were chosen," Georgianne said. "It's very difficult and will always be, but people are learning from us. People fought with us. We can't give up the fight."
Surgery removed the tumor, and Michael defied what doctors believed and had previously seen when he came out of that surgery not only talking, but asking his parents to get the protective bandage off his head. Later, doctors and nurses at the Cleveland Clinic would tell the Orbanys their son was the first child not sedated during radiation treatments.
A doctor told the family Michael handled his chemo treatments "like a man of steel." Georgianne Orbany called Michael her Superman; during his hospital stays, he enjoyed sporadic visits from a group of volunteers who dressed as superheroes and visited sick children.
"He was the happiest kid in the world," Matt said. "That's what I'll always want to ask God. Why Michael?"
In 2013, the tumor came back. The cancer spread into Michael's spine and brain.
Michael was buried in a Superman shirt. His gravestone is cut in the shape of Superman's logo.
**
That first summer his brother was sick was Matt Orbany's first summer without football. He still hung around the weightroom. He went to the summer installation camp just to watch. He was, he admits, "pretty lost."
An older friend, Owen Williams, had worked with the football team as a student manager. He encouraged Matt to help out, to stay around the team. Matt agreed, and his first task was less than glorious.
Water boy.
"All the water," he jokes now. "At least it kept me busy."
Matt and Michael Orbany with St. Edward basketball coach Eric Flannery.
Busy was good, he discovered, and he discovered he still loved football even though he couldn't play it. He started watching film with the coaching staff, asking a lot of questions, participating in X-and-O discussions and helping with practice plans. He graduated from water to a head set, and during games the last two seasons he signaled in defensive calls he took from the press box.
"Matt gave that football program his everything," St. Edward assistant coach Matt Minnillo said. "Hours, energy, passion. He earned our trust. He earned everybody's respect."
Said Georgianne: "I never thought Matthew would love the game as much as his father did, because I never met anyone who loved football as much as my husband did. But Matthew did. He was all about being with that team. We did worry about him finding his way a little bit, finding a niche. Boy, did he find it."
Before a 2013 game vs. Erie McDowell, Michael Orbany was named a St. Edward honorary captain. He was wheeled on to the field before the game and to midfield for the pregame coin toss.
"The guys from the opposing team shook his hand, too," Steve Orbany said. "I think then we really took stock of how many people he touched during his fight."
**
There's some debate in the Orbany household about which sport was Michael's favorite.
There's agreement that his favorite player was 6'10 -- and growing every hour -- basketball player Derek Funderburk, maybe just because Michael had to look so far up to see Funderburk. But the St. Edward rugby team sent a ball to Michael, and the basketball team headlined a fundraiser last winter that raised $10,000 for the St. Baldrick's Foundation. At that event, Matt Orbany and St. Edward basketball coach Eric Flannery shaved their heads to match Michael.
When he first got sick, football coach Rick Finotti brought some of his players over for an impromptu visit and let Michael try on a 2010 state championship ring. Over the last two seasons, "NEGU" started showing up on the eye black some football players were, on wristbands, written in marker on shoes.
"NEGU" is the acronym for "Never, Ever Give Up," the motto adopted by the Orbanys and the St. Edward community during Michael's fight.
Maybe Michael's favorite sport varied by season.
"Mike thought he was so cool because Derek and Kipper (Nichols, another star basketball player) would give him high-fives all the time and talk to him after games," Matt said. "He loved football, too. He would always ask me to play football with him outside before he got sick. And he was a great golfer. He could hit golf shots kids my age can't hit."
Both Finotti and Flannery were pallbearers at Michael's funeral. Sean O'Toole, the basketball coach at St. Ignatius -- St. Edward's fiercest rival -- brought his whole team to pay last respects.
Michael Orbany had a "Future Eagles" t-shirt. He planned to attend the school, like his father and brother did. That t-shirt now hangs in Steve's closet, in front of all the others.
It's the first shirt he sees every morning.
Michael Orbany with the St. Edwards High School football team.
**
Christmas is here. The Orbanys have been dreading it.
"Who wouldn't? It's been awful," Georgianne admits. "It was even hard to get a tree."
She stresses that "every day was Michael's favorite day of the year, but he especially loved Christmas."
Matt says his parents knew last Christmas would be his brother's last, but he was in denial.
"We had a great, great Christmas," Georgianne said. "That gave us joy at the time. It makes this year harder."
On Christmas, Matthew Orbany plans to visit his brother's grave. That night, he'll leave with the St. Edward basketball team for a tournament in Myrtle Beach.
**
"I'm still mourning," Matt said. "Last summer was just different. My parents would tell me I could stay home but I would come to school, to the football office."
Georgianne Orbany said she'd call her son last summer and ask how we was doing, when he'd be home and -- probably most importantly -- where he was.
"The football office," Matt would tell her. "I'm working."
"Every time," Georgianne said.
Matt wore a headset on the sideline during games and an orange shirt so the defensive players could see his signals. Last season he also organized the football team's weekly prayer services, helped players make highlight videos for college recruiters and directed other managers during practice and game-week preparation.
"In a way it was therapy for him," Minnillo said. "But it wasn't just something he did. He was all in."
When he started as a manager under his friend Owen Williams, there were three volunteer managers. He'll graduate with participation in the manager program at 13.
"Matt is here to serve and help other people," Flannery said. "That's his calling. Sports bond people. Matt just wanted to be a part. Maybe all he's done helps keep his mind away from the tragedy, and I hope it does. But it takes a special guy to do what he's done, give what he's given. Not all young guys sacrifice to be a part of something bigger.
"Matt does. He's always willing to help."
Matt Orbany says his brother Michael (middle) is watching over him every single day.
Matt was wait-listed in the Notre Dame admissions process; choosing Holy Cross was his best path to getting in. He plans to either major in economics or sports medicine, whichever helps him get his foot in the locker room door.
"My friends tell me they're going to be on TV getting drafted in the NFL," Matt said. "I tell them I'll be the one negotiating the contract."
Matt said it took "only one visit" to Notre Dame for him to know that's where he wants to be for his next phase.
"When I first started as a manager, I realized that this opportunity is one of a lifetime," Matt said. "That's how I see Notre Dame, too, and I'm already working on how I can help and learn when I get there.
"I signaled in the defense for a team that won a state championship. Nobody on the team ever treated me any lesser. I felt a part of that team. I sweated every moment. It's a brotherhood. Losing my brother sucked but I have 900 other brothers at St. Ed's. I'm gonna miss these games and these guys like hell."
**
Before the state basketball tournament last March, Matt found in a closet at St. Edward leftover t-shirts that said, "Eagles Soar for Big Mike." At the bottom of the t-shirts were the letters "NEGU."
There were just enough t-shirts in that closet for the players to wear them in warmups at the state tournament.
The Eagles cruised to a semifinal victory, but they struggled in the state final against Upper Arlington. St. Edward trailed for much of the game and trailed by three points with five seconds left. Out of a timeout, senior Marsailis Hamilton inbounded the ball in front of the St. Edward bench.
Hamilton passed the ball to Funderburk, stepped back on to the floor and got the ball back. He launched a 3-pointer from probably 25 feet. It went in.
"There's obviously a little part of you that thinks you had a little help in that circumstance," Flannery said. "There's always some thing that pushes you over the top."
St. Edward won in overtime.
Said Matt: "It was destiny. Had to be."
Mike Orbany was in the final stages of his fight then. He'd been watching at home -- tucked under a St. Edward blanket, wearing a St. Edward t-shirt -- and had begged his mother to wake him up if he fell asleep.
He was asleep before the shot went in. He woke up to the news that his guys were state champs.
**
Tucked in the corner of the Orbany living room is a small Christmas tree put up last December. Michael Orbany's classmates from St. Bernadette School sent decorations for it, then even after last Christmas sent different decorations every month. After Michael died, those same classmates made angels inscribed with 'NEGU' for the tree.
Those angels are still hanging; that tree sits in the same place it did last December.
There are no plans to take it down.
