It was a common sentiment throughout the offseason — as Gabe Watson goes, so goes the Michigan defense.

Like the defense, Watson enters the 2005 campaign with a bull’s eye on the back of his jersey. While it remains to be seen whether his offseason conditioning will improve his stamina in the grueling Big Ten season, one thing is certain — if anyone can handle adversity, it’s Watson.

On his left bicep, just below the sleeve of his jersey, Watson has a tattoo, a scroll inscribed with a Bible verse — James 1:2-4 — whose meaning transcends his on-the-field struggles.

“It’s basically saying that when you’re going through tough times, just be joyful and know that good things are going to come out sooner or later,” Watson explains. “It’s been part of my life a long time.”

Watson’s faith is one of the values his mother LaVon instilled in him at a young age. But far too early, Watson had something just as precious taken away — his mother’s constant presence in his life.

Along with his father and six brothers and sisters, Watson weathered the erratic behavior caused by LaVon’s mental illness.

It’s the kind of childhood that could have hardened him. But as his tattoo illustrates, the Southfield native has never lost his ability to see the good — and the humor — in his life, no matter how hard his coaches push him or how much he missed his mom as a child.

“You don’t grow without going through adversity,” Watson says. “You just have to get used to it.”

 

Trying to understand

Watson’s eldest brother Chuck sounds more like his father as he shares his memories of Gabe as a child.

Chuck used to lift weights in the basement of their house. One day when Gabe was about seven or eight, he came downstairs and started throwing shoes and socks at Chuck. He waited for his big brother to get angry and then ran up the stairs. Chuck followed him, but, when he reached the top, he slipped on the banana peel that Gabe had placed there and fell down in the middle of the hallway.

Chuck looks back on that prank with a father’s fondness rather than a brother’s bitterness.

“He always was a funny kid,” Chuck said. “You had no choice but to laugh.”

Chuck never expected to be a third parent to his younger siblings. But with his father often holding more than one full-time job and working up to 16 hours each day, he had to take on some of the day-to-day tasks, like cooking and cleaning and making sure all seven kids got to school on time with only one bathroom to get ready in.

And as his mother’s condition worsened, his responsibilities continued to grow.

LaVon was at her worst in the mid-1980s. She heard noises and at times went days without eating or sleeping. She often walked around the house late at night, and on the warmest days of the summer she would wear three or four layers of clothes, unaware of the heat.

Gabe was just four years old when doctors diagnosed his mother’s mental illness. It’s still hard for him to understand it now, but as a preschooler, trying to comprehend her “crazy” behavior was almost impossible.

“There’s a lot of things you look at like why is she doing this or why is she doing that,” Watson said. “You try to understand it, but you just can’t understand some parts of it.”

 

“All we got is us”

For much of Gabe’s childhood, his mother was in and out of the hospital.

“Sometimes we would see her for two years, and then she would disappear for 11 months,” Watson said. “Then we’d see her again, and then 11 police cars would come up to our house and take her away.”

Chuck didn’t want to call the police at first; he felt disloyal to his mother. He eventually realized that in her mental state, LaVon needed more help than he could give her.

The image of police officers taking his mother away still breaks Gabe’s heart.

“It was tough growing up and seeing your brothers and sisters — looking in their eyes and seeing them cry, so hurt from the things that were going on,” Watson said. “It was tough. You don’t want your family, your loved ones, going through that.”