Nick Eason using personal experience with loss to help Bryan Bresee

Nick Eason coaches a drill as Bryan Bresee (11) looks on.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Mon Oct 17 13:03:58 GMT-04:00 2022

CLEMSON – Nick Eason lost his mother to breast cancer just after he turned 30, and he’s also had to face the death of his sister. He knows the pain and heartache of losing someone you love, and he feels like those losses have helped him as one of his players copes with the loss of his sister.

Defensive tackle Bryan Bresee’s younger sister Ella passed away from brain cancer a few weeks ago. Bresee was her protector and the two were very close, and as he transitions back into football (he played last week against FSU, just his second game since Ella passed), he has a caring coach who knows what it’s like to deal with that kind of loss.

“That’s been a touchy area for me as well. I've dealt with a lot of loss, and I go back and I think about when I was 30 years old and I lost my mom to breast cancer my last year in the NFL and how difficult that was for me at that point in time,” Eason said Monday. “I've been through a lot in my life. You take Bryan and you just turn 21 years old and to go through that and watch a little sister, that was a tough deal.”

Eason said he feels like Clemson – with the love that surrounds the program – is the perfect place for Bresee.

“I think that he's getting better day by day. We have conversations here and there, and I just think that love and the atmosphere and him being at Clemson is where he needed to be,” Eason said. “We are a faith-based culture, so he knows that he has a lot of love from all of us, the players and staff, our head coach, the university. The support has been huge, so I think that's helped him get through this. But I know it's a struggle for him, but he's showing up, going to work and just pushing through it. So I've been really proud of the way he's handled himself, and so I think he's getting better day by day.”

Eason said everyone is dedicated to make sure Bresee gets through the toughest time of his young life.

“We're all human. And when you go through things like that, you can only imagine that it's probably tearing them up on inside. You lose your little sister and watch her go through that? Man, it's really tough,” Eason said. “So I can only go by just my conversations with him, his demeanor, how he's been in practice, and I think all those things have been really good in terms of what I've seen thus far from him.

“But he's ready to go, and we're going to help him. We're going to pray with him. We're going to love on him and help him get through the season, man, together. And we're all in it. When he hurts, we hurt. But at the end of the day, when you're personally going through that, there is a difference. I've lost a sister before, but she wasn't 15 years old. She was 48 years old. That's a touchy subject, very difficult conversation to talk about. But he's doing a lot better.”