Janina Tuoyo would say she had a headache. She’d claim she wasn’t feeling well. She’d even tell her bosses that an emergency required her to go pick up one of her sons.

But they were all excuses to get out of work.

And each one she gave was so her youngest son, Justin Tuoyo, would be on time to his AAU basketball practice an hour and a half away.

“She used to have to leave work two hours early to bring me to practice,” Tuoyo said. “That’s what she would do once out of the week.”

When Tuoyo, now a sophomore forward for Chattanooga, was 9 years old, his father, Anthony, was killed in a car accident. Janina Tuoyo raised her three sons on her own with help from her sister. But growing up in a single-parent home brought its struggles for Tuoyo, and his mother maintained three jobs when he was in high school so he could get an education and go to college to play basketball.

Now, the 6-foot-10 Tuoyo ranks third in the country in total blocks and is a driving force down low for a Chattanooga (18-9, 11-3 Southern). Tuoyo perseveres through every challenge basketball brings him with his mother in mind and his ultimate goal is to make a living where he can give back what she has given to him.

“I know he wants to retire me, that’s his dream,” Janina Tuoyo said. “He doesn’t want me to be working so hard.”

When he was a kid, Tuoyo not only played basketball, but was great at baseball too, he said. His father wasn’t at Tuoyo’s basketball games that often, but made almost every single baseball one.

But when Anthony Tuoyo passed away, playing baseball just didn’t feel right anymore.

“I tried to go back out and it wasn’t the same no more,” Tuoyo said. “I didn’t love it no more so I just gave it up.”

Tuoyo even stopped playing basketball for four or five months, but was eventually drawn back in by a former coach.

Meanwhile, his mother worked as a real estate agent, at a car dealership and at Wal-Mart. When Tuoyo returned home from school, his mother wouldn’t be there, and it wouldn’t be until 10 p.m. that she got back.

“The way she worked, I knew it was hard for her, she didn’t want to do it all the time,” Tuoyo said. “She did everything with money expenses that we needed to travel for AAU or make a game in high school. Whatever she could do, she’d try and do it.”

After one year of college at Virginia Commonwealth, Tuoyo wanted to transfer. Will Wade — a former assistant with the Rams who recruited Tuoyo — happened to take the head coaching job at Chattanooga at the time. On the first day of his new job, Wade said, Tuoyo signed the papers to transfer there.

Wade had, and still has, a thriving relationship with both Tuoyo and his mother that has roots five years back. He estimated that around 70 percent of the players he recruits come from single-parent homes, and knew that Tuoyo would be a perfect fit for his new team.

“A lot of our kids come from rougher backgrounds. I’m a blue-collar guy. I’m drawn to those types of kids,” Wade said. “Our program’s set up to help those guys who do a lot of things off the court with life lessons and different other activities that are set up to help those guys grow and become really good people once they graduate.”

Now that he’s found a fit at Chattanooga, Tuoyo says his goal is to graduate, get a degree and help his mother once he gets out of school. There will be times when Tuoyo hits a roadblock at practice, but Wade reminds his big man of one thing, that his mom overcame tough times as well.

Today, the Tuoyo’s financial situation has improved, Janina Tuoyo said, since she doesn’t have to fly to games after her son transferred closer to home. That, and he doesn’t ask her to send him money every week, she joked.

She only has to maintain a Wal-Mart cashier job now and while she admits that her knees and spine aren’t in great heath, she knows the family will be OK.

“That’s what made it OK to work so hard, was Justin’s determination to excel in basketball,” Janina Tuoyo said. “Sometimes I can’t believe we’ve come a long way like this.”

Published on February 17, 2015 at 12:15 am

Contact Matt: mcschnei@syr.edu | @matt_schneidman