OU's Khadeem Lattin headed to Houston for Final Four, grandmother
Khadeem Lattin with his grandmother
HOUSTON (FOX 26) - Within minutes of Oklahoma beating Oregon 80-68 on Saturday to get to the NCAA Men’s Final Four in his hometown of Houston, Sooners forward Khadeem Lattin quickly sent a text to his grandmother, Brenda Fair, who is battling stage four lung cancer.
Khadeem’s dad, Cliff, picks up the story from there.
“He sent her a text after the game and I was thinking, ‘he’s texting already,” Cliff Lattin said in an interview with FOX 26 Sports. “We just saw him cutting the nets down’ and she got a text, and he told her he loved her and he’ll see her soon. It made everybody kind of teary.”
Brenda Fair said she was overwhelmed when she heard so quickly from her grandson.
"That meant the world to me," said Fair. "You just don't know."
Cliff Lattin said his mother’s situation is terminal.
“It’s any day. Every day is a bonus,” Cliff Lattin said. “He’s doing everything he can for her to have some happiness. This really makes her proud to see him doing what he’s doing.”
The Lattin family is hoping Brenda will be able to go NRG Stadium for the NCAA National Semifinal game between Oklahoma and Villanova on Saturday.
"That would mean to the world to me," Fair said. "You just don't know."
And it would mean the world to her family.
“I don’t know if she’ll be able to be there the whole game because the pain is so severe, but we’re going to do everything possible to have her there to at least see him start the game,” Cliff Lattin said.
“It would be such a great thing, because my mother really doesn’t have much time. To have that memory it would be very special.”