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As Michael Gallup dealt with tragedy of brother’s death, the Cowboys rallied around him
By Calvin Watkins 5h ago
Jenny Gallup was scanning the internet at an Amsterdam airport when she saw someone tweet that one of her sons had died.
She was fresh off a three-week missionary mission in Africa, and Amsterdam was her final stop before reaching the states. Her world was now starting to crumble.
“Somebody put it all over the internet, and I read about my son,” Jenny Gallup told The Athletic. “I didn’t even know which son it was. I called my daughter (to ask) what had happened, and she told me.”
Jenny Gallup’s daughter revealed her brother, Andrew, committed suicide last Saturday. It was supposed to be a special weekend for the Gallup family. Cowboys wide receiver Michael Gallup grew up in Monroe, Georgia, an hour away from Atlanta. So when the Cowboys faced the Falcons last Sunday, family and friends were there to greet him. But everything changed in the worst possible way.
Jenny Gallup was in a frantic state, trying to get home as quickly as possible. But she was on another continent, at the whims of the airline industry. She sat at an airport last Monday, waiting for her plane to take off. She spent a nearly 10-hour flight to Atlanta alone in her thoughts. Nobody to speak with; nobody to share her pain with.
When she landed at last, the voicemails and text messages flooded her phone as she switched it off airplane mode. Gallup stood in the immigration line, trying to fight through the pain of a lost son. Trying to become a nurturing mother for the sake of her children and relatives.
She kept searching for answers. But all she knew was this: Andrew was gone.
Jenny Gallup wanted to do this in a private way, but Michael is a professional football player and sometimes personal lives become public. The people who don’t play these games become public figures on a big stage, whether they intended to or not.
“You have no idea,” Jenny Gallup said. “I came all the way from Amerstdam to Atlanta and my phone is just lighting up and I try to hold it together in the immigration line. I just wanted to scream and I know everybody means well but I just want to try and touch my child’s body. But that’s not the way it is anymore.”
The Cowboys had just defeated the Falcons 22-19, forging a two-game winning streak. When the players and coaches bounced into the visitors’ locker room, Cowboys director of player development Bryan Wansley motioned for coach Jason Garrett to speak with him. Wansley told Garrett about the Gallup family’s tragedy. Garrett, trying to savor the moment of a needed victory, had to cut the celebration short. Garrett addressed the team briefly about the victory, and then Wansley went to work.
He pulled Gallup aside and walked him into a small room inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Michael figured something was wrong when his oldest sister, Jessica, was waiting for him. Along with the receiver’s two older brothers, Jessica Gallup didn’t attend the game; instead, she stayed home to watch it in Monroe. She drove to Atlanta to tell Michael about losing Andrew. She phoned Wansley, who is the contact person for family members when something goes awry, and agreed she would talk with Michael after the game. With Wansley standing outside the room, Jessica Gallup told her brother that Andrew was had passed away.
No playbook indicates how to handle the death of a loved one. Garrett was the head coach when practice squad player Jerry Brown was killed in 2012 as his close friend and teammate, Josh Brent, crashed the car he was driving. The death occurred in the early morning hours before a road trip. That afternoon, Garrett addressed the team on the plane before they headed to Cincinnati.
This time, Garrett didn’t address the team. He spoke with different pockets of players about what happened in the locker room. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was teary-eyed.
When he spoke with reporters last Sunday, he just mentioned there was a tragedy in Gallup’s family.
Michael Gallup sat at his locker in tears. The celebration of a big win was muted. His teammates supported him like he was their own brother, as if trying to fill the void so recently vacated. Michael Gallup would remain in Atlanta as the rest of his teammates returned to Dallas. They would wait for him to return; football was on pause right now.
“That was by far the toughest thing I had to do was hear news like that,” Gallup said. “You don’t know how to think. Just sit there and cry. I just cried. I got in the car with my sister and cried the whole way home.”
Jenny Gallup was still a child when she knew she wanted to adopt. After she married, she had two children with her husband — and that’s when everything came into focus.
“That’s just something that was always in my heart, even as a child,” Jenny Gallup said. “I was married, and we had two birth children. It seemed like we had so much, not in the way of money, but in the way of a nice home and a place for kids to run and play. It just seemed the natural thing to do, to share that.”
And she did. Jenny Gallup worked in property management in the Monroe area and also did missionary support for ACTION International.
She had two children, Jessica and Donnie, through marriage. The family expanded when they contacted an adoption agency and brought Raju and Lydia, who were born in India, into their lives. Next came Michael, who was born at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, at 10 months.
“A little bitty guy,” Jessica Gallup said of Michael. “When I first saw him, I truthfully felt pity on him because he was grieving for his birth mother and I felt pity on him. It was a very easy thing to pick him up and love on him and love him and just make sure he was nurtured. I don’t know if I call him a toddler at 10 months old. He had just started walking.”
The Gallups then adopted Yeabu, who was born in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Andrew and Raymond came from the same orphanage in West Africa and were the last of the Gallups’ adopted children. The Gallups built a large, diverse family consisting of eight children: Two white kids, an African-American, two from India and three from Africa.
“It was a good thing for me growing up,” the rookie receiver said. “It taught you to respect everybody. You’ve got to be humble about what you’re doing, and that’s what moved me in a big way.”
Michael Gallup said growing up in a ranch-style home in Monroe was fun. The family would play soccer, football and basketball. There was a lake near their home, and fishing and dirt bike riding were near-daily occurrences. He didn’t look at his adopted brothers and sisters as step-brothers or step-sisters. This was his blood. This was his family.
His birth mother gave him up, and he doesn’t know his birth father. The mom he knows is Jenny Gallup, who got divorced when Michael was about 10.
“My birth dad left, and my mom put me up for adoption; she couldn’t take care of me and she wanted me to have a better life,” Michael Gallup said.
And being adopted isn’t a big deal to him. It’s just part of his life, a part of his life that gave him the love and support he needed. It didn’t matter whether they shared skin color; this was his family.
“It hit me when I was young,” Michael Gallup said. “I guess it was one day it really clicked. I was in church, and I realized. I really figured out what adopted meant and why my brother and sisters were not black and my mom was white. Okay, I was adopted. Then, we just went from there. Nothing really changed.”
Gallup said one day he will look for his birth mother, but this isn’t the time.
“I know he’ll do that,” Jenny Gallup said. “Right now, he’s just at peace where he’s at. I’ll leave that up to him.”
Last Tuesday night, Michael Gallup arrived in Dallas from Atlanta on Jerry Jones’ private jet after spending the previous two days with his mom, siblings and friends. They consoled each other and tried to find answers to the crucial question: What happened to Andrew? Thanksgiving was coming, and a funeral was being planned. It was a crushing week for the Gallup family, and Michael, the youngest of the children, had to leave for work. He wanted to play in the Thanksgiving Day game against Washington. So on Wednesday afternoon, he walked past the outdoor practice fields toward the locker room at The Star ready for work. He smiled at a reporter and gave him a fist bump as if to say everything would be alright.
On Thanksgiving Day, less than a week after losing his brother, Michael Gallup would play at AT&T Stadium. He would catch two passes for 19 yards in a 31-23 victory over Washington, and was wide-open late in the game for what might have been a long touchdown pass had it not been underthrown. After the game, instead of a quiet celebration, an emotional one emerged from the Cowboys’ locker room.
Garrett presented the game ball to a smiling Gallup. The Dallas head coach began to tear up during his presentation and, after the team broke from its huddle, Garrett hugged running back Ezekiel Elliott, quarterback Dak Prescott and linemen Zack Martin and Joe Looney. Garrett was not only emotional for Gallup, but it reminded him of his own losses. Garrett’s father, Jim, passed away in February. He told the players during this holiday season to remember their parents and loved ones.
“I do think it was emotional,” Garrett said. “It was good to have him there. It was good to have everybody around him during this difficult time.”
The soft-spoken Gallup received a long ovation from his teammates after the game. They asked him for a speech. What he said was short, but heartfelt.
“I know my brother was up there watching us,” Gallup told his teammates on a video posted by the Cowboys. “And I told him we’re going to play for him. I appreciate you guys, every one of you. You played well for me, and I really appreciate that.”
Gallup would go back to Georgia for his brother’s funeral the next day. The hows and whys of what happened are for the family only. But Michael Gallup will be there to support his family; he’s the one who keeps everybody loose.
“He’s quiet only around strangers,” Jenny Gallup said. “When he’s at home, he thinks he’s Eddie Murphy. He’s the class clown at home. He’s the one that keeps us rolling. He is quiet around other people; he was that way as a child. But when it was his family or his friends, it’s a whole different story. He’s a well-balanced kid.”
Gallup said he got advice from Lt. Col. Kevin Jarrard, a former commandant at Gallup’s high school, Riverside Military Academy.
“Make sure you are talking to people. Don’t go home and sitting by yourself not talking to nobody. That is the biggest thing because you start thinking about things. Just make sure you are talking to people. Don’t let anything bottle up. And I have had friends up here ever since I got back. I got people at my apartment right now making sure when I go home I got somebody to talk to.”
Prescott has endured his own losses; his mother died of breast cancer in 2013, so he took particular pride in supporting a man who is now part of his football family.
“I told him that no one can tell him how to feel and no one can tell him what to do,” Prescott said. “Do what you think is right. Do what your heart tells you to do. As simple as that. You don’t try to compare one tragedy to another. Not in that instance. But going through that and having been through that, I felt it was important for me to tell him to feel what you think is right to feel. No one can tell you that.”
By Calvin Watkins 5h ago
Jenny Gallup was scanning the internet at an Amsterdam airport when she saw someone tweet that one of her sons had died.
She was fresh off a three-week missionary mission in Africa, and Amsterdam was her final stop before reaching the states. Her world was now starting to crumble.
“Somebody put it all over the internet, and I read about my son,” Jenny Gallup told The Athletic. “I didn’t even know which son it was. I called my daughter (to ask) what had happened, and she told me.”
Jenny Gallup’s daughter revealed her brother, Andrew, committed suicide last Saturday. It was supposed to be a special weekend for the Gallup family. Cowboys wide receiver Michael Gallup grew up in Monroe, Georgia, an hour away from Atlanta. So when the Cowboys faced the Falcons last Sunday, family and friends were there to greet him. But everything changed in the worst possible way.
Jenny Gallup was in a frantic state, trying to get home as quickly as possible. But she was on another continent, at the whims of the airline industry. She sat at an airport last Monday, waiting for her plane to take off. She spent a nearly 10-hour flight to Atlanta alone in her thoughts. Nobody to speak with; nobody to share her pain with.
When she landed at last, the voicemails and text messages flooded her phone as she switched it off airplane mode. Gallup stood in the immigration line, trying to fight through the pain of a lost son. Trying to become a nurturing mother for the sake of her children and relatives.
She kept searching for answers. But all she knew was this: Andrew was gone.
Jenny Gallup wanted to do this in a private way, but Michael is a professional football player and sometimes personal lives become public. The people who don’t play these games become public figures on a big stage, whether they intended to or not.
“You have no idea,” Jenny Gallup said. “I came all the way from Amerstdam to Atlanta and my phone is just lighting up and I try to hold it together in the immigration line. I just wanted to scream and I know everybody means well but I just want to try and touch my child’s body. But that’s not the way it is anymore.”
The Cowboys had just defeated the Falcons 22-19, forging a two-game winning streak. When the players and coaches bounced into the visitors’ locker room, Cowboys director of player development Bryan Wansley motioned for coach Jason Garrett to speak with him. Wansley told Garrett about the Gallup family’s tragedy. Garrett, trying to savor the moment of a needed victory, had to cut the celebration short. Garrett addressed the team briefly about the victory, and then Wansley went to work.
He pulled Gallup aside and walked him into a small room inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Michael figured something was wrong when his oldest sister, Jessica, was waiting for him. Along with the receiver’s two older brothers, Jessica Gallup didn’t attend the game; instead, she stayed home to watch it in Monroe. She drove to Atlanta to tell Michael about losing Andrew. She phoned Wansley, who is the contact person for family members when something goes awry, and agreed she would talk with Michael after the game. With Wansley standing outside the room, Jessica Gallup told her brother that Andrew was had passed away.
No playbook indicates how to handle the death of a loved one. Garrett was the head coach when practice squad player Jerry Brown was killed in 2012 as his close friend and teammate, Josh Brent, crashed the car he was driving. The death occurred in the early morning hours before a road trip. That afternoon, Garrett addressed the team on the plane before they headed to Cincinnati.
This time, Garrett didn’t address the team. He spoke with different pockets of players about what happened in the locker room. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was teary-eyed.
When he spoke with reporters last Sunday, he just mentioned there was a tragedy in Gallup’s family.
Michael Gallup sat at his locker in tears. The celebration of a big win was muted. His teammates supported him like he was their own brother, as if trying to fill the void so recently vacated. Michael Gallup would remain in Atlanta as the rest of his teammates returned to Dallas. They would wait for him to return; football was on pause right now.
“That was by far the toughest thing I had to do was hear news like that,” Gallup said. “You don’t know how to think. Just sit there and cry. I just cried. I got in the car with my sister and cried the whole way home.”
Jenny Gallup was still a child when she knew she wanted to adopt. After she married, she had two children with her husband — and that’s when everything came into focus.
“That’s just something that was always in my heart, even as a child,” Jenny Gallup said. “I was married, and we had two birth children. It seemed like we had so much, not in the way of money, but in the way of a nice home and a place for kids to run and play. It just seemed the natural thing to do, to share that.”
And she did. Jenny Gallup worked in property management in the Monroe area and also did missionary support for ACTION International.
She had two children, Jessica and Donnie, through marriage. The family expanded when they contacted an adoption agency and brought Raju and Lydia, who were born in India, into their lives. Next came Michael, who was born at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, at 10 months.
“A little bitty guy,” Jessica Gallup said of Michael. “When I first saw him, I truthfully felt pity on him because he was grieving for his birth mother and I felt pity on him. It was a very easy thing to pick him up and love on him and love him and just make sure he was nurtured. I don’t know if I call him a toddler at 10 months old. He had just started walking.”
The Gallups then adopted Yeabu, who was born in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Andrew and Raymond came from the same orphanage in West Africa and were the last of the Gallups’ adopted children. The Gallups built a large, diverse family consisting of eight children: Two white kids, an African-American, two from India and three from Africa.
“It was a good thing for me growing up,” the rookie receiver said. “It taught you to respect everybody. You’ve got to be humble about what you’re doing, and that’s what moved me in a big way.”
Michael Gallup said growing up in a ranch-style home in Monroe was fun. The family would play soccer, football and basketball. There was a lake near their home, and fishing and dirt bike riding were near-daily occurrences. He didn’t look at his adopted brothers and sisters as step-brothers or step-sisters. This was his blood. This was his family.
His birth mother gave him up, and he doesn’t know his birth father. The mom he knows is Jenny Gallup, who got divorced when Michael was about 10.
“My birth dad left, and my mom put me up for adoption; she couldn’t take care of me and she wanted me to have a better life,” Michael Gallup said.
And being adopted isn’t a big deal to him. It’s just part of his life, a part of his life that gave him the love and support he needed. It didn’t matter whether they shared skin color; this was his family.
“It hit me when I was young,” Michael Gallup said. “I guess it was one day it really clicked. I was in church, and I realized. I really figured out what adopted meant and why my brother and sisters were not black and my mom was white. Okay, I was adopted. Then, we just went from there. Nothing really changed.”
Gallup said one day he will look for his birth mother, but this isn’t the time.
“I know he’ll do that,” Jenny Gallup said. “Right now, he’s just at peace where he’s at. I’ll leave that up to him.”
Last Tuesday night, Michael Gallup arrived in Dallas from Atlanta on Jerry Jones’ private jet after spending the previous two days with his mom, siblings and friends. They consoled each other and tried to find answers to the crucial question: What happened to Andrew? Thanksgiving was coming, and a funeral was being planned. It was a crushing week for the Gallup family, and Michael, the youngest of the children, had to leave for work. He wanted to play in the Thanksgiving Day game against Washington. So on Wednesday afternoon, he walked past the outdoor practice fields toward the locker room at The Star ready for work. He smiled at a reporter and gave him a fist bump as if to say everything would be alright.
On Thanksgiving Day, less than a week after losing his brother, Michael Gallup would play at AT&T Stadium. He would catch two passes for 19 yards in a 31-23 victory over Washington, and was wide-open late in the game for what might have been a long touchdown pass had it not been underthrown. After the game, instead of a quiet celebration, an emotional one emerged from the Cowboys’ locker room.
Garrett presented the game ball to a smiling Gallup. The Dallas head coach began to tear up during his presentation and, after the team broke from its huddle, Garrett hugged running back Ezekiel Elliott, quarterback Dak Prescott and linemen Zack Martin and Joe Looney. Garrett was not only emotional for Gallup, but it reminded him of his own losses. Garrett’s father, Jim, passed away in February. He told the players during this holiday season to remember their parents and loved ones.
“I do think it was emotional,” Garrett said. “It was good to have him there. It was good to have everybody around him during this difficult time.”
The soft-spoken Gallup received a long ovation from his teammates after the game. They asked him for a speech. What he said was short, but heartfelt.
“I know my brother was up there watching us,” Gallup told his teammates on a video posted by the Cowboys. “And I told him we’re going to play for him. I appreciate you guys, every one of you. You played well for me, and I really appreciate that.”
Gallup would go back to Georgia for his brother’s funeral the next day. The hows and whys of what happened are for the family only. But Michael Gallup will be there to support his family; he’s the one who keeps everybody loose.
“He’s quiet only around strangers,” Jenny Gallup said. “When he’s at home, he thinks he’s Eddie Murphy. He’s the class clown at home. He’s the one that keeps us rolling. He is quiet around other people; he was that way as a child. But when it was his family or his friends, it’s a whole different story. He’s a well-balanced kid.”
Gallup said he got advice from Lt. Col. Kevin Jarrard, a former commandant at Gallup’s high school, Riverside Military Academy.
“Make sure you are talking to people. Don’t go home and sitting by yourself not talking to nobody. That is the biggest thing because you start thinking about things. Just make sure you are talking to people. Don’t let anything bottle up. And I have had friends up here ever since I got back. I got people at my apartment right now making sure when I go home I got somebody to talk to.”
Prescott has endured his own losses; his mother died of breast cancer in 2013, so he took particular pride in supporting a man who is now part of his football family.
“I told him that no one can tell him how to feel and no one can tell him what to do,” Prescott said. “Do what you think is right. Do what your heart tells you to do. As simple as that. You don’t try to compare one tragedy to another. Not in that instance. But going through that and having been through that, I felt it was important for me to tell him to feel what you think is right to feel. No one can tell you that.”
