Truman Barnes wanted to play basketball.
He turned to his father, Josh – who helped coach his son’s youth team – and made the request. But substituting Truman into the game wasn’t that simple.
Between early January and that game – played in the spring of last year – Truman underwent radiation for a brain tumor. He’d managed to come out and be with his team, once again.
Josh knew what the doctor had said: that Truman shouldn’t play basketball, that he couldn’t get hit in the head. But his son wanted to get in the game.
“He said, ‘Dad, I want to play,’” said Josh Barnes, an assistant coach for the ADM boys basketball team that will play in the state tournament this week. “His team was doing pretty well, and they were up by a lot. So we got him in there for the last two minutes, and he kind of just did the best he could.
“He was actually able to go back and play basketball once more, which was extremely emotional. It seemed like everybody in the crowd was crying at the same time.”
Truman passed away on Oct. 11, 2024, a little less than three months after his 12th birthday and just over nine months since he’d been diagnosed with cancer.
His last time playing basketball with his team was filled with emotions. There were tears shed during those two minutes that he was on the court. But if Truman brought one thing to those around him – in basketball or in life – it was joy.
On Jan. 2, 2024, the Barnes family found out about Truman’s diagnosis, a brain tumor called diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG). It is an aggressive form of brain cancer affecting children, with a life expectancy of six months to a year. There is no cure; the tumor is inoperable.
Truman underwent radiation, which allowed him to return to some sense of normalcy for a couple of months. He qualified for a clinical trial, and the family relocated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.
Despite the care the Barnes family received at St. Jude, the treatment didn’t work, and Truman returned home to Iowa at the end of June. His parents, Josh and Collin, were told that he would have days, maybe weeks, left.
Truman lived for four more months.
There was much more to Truman than cancer.
Other children – and people, in general – gravitated toward Truman, a fun-loving boy with a kilowatt smile. He grew into the type of kid that people wanted to be around, and his parents thought he could be a good leader.
He’d joined the student council at St. Augustin in Des Moines. He enjoyed music, learning to play piano, guitar and saxophone. He loved school, loved his family, loved sports.
Boy, did he love sports.
“Well, his first word was ball,” Josh shared. “So it kind of started there.”
His love of sports began with soccer, which Truman started playing when he was around three years old. Even in early childhood, he developed a tight bond of friendship with his teammates. His ability to connect with and celebrate others stood out on the soccer field.
“At five years old, his teammates would score a goal, or he would score a goal, and they would jump around and dance like nobody was watching,” Josh recalled.
Truman got into baseball, basketball and football a couple of years after starting soccer. A season didn’t go by without him playing at least one sport. If his parents asked him which sport was his favorite, the answer was simple: whatever one he was playing at the time.
Around 10 years old, though, basketball began to emerge as the frontrunner. Truman started excelling in that sport over his other hobbies, and he worked hard at improving his game. His interest in basketball wasn’t limited to the youth programs he played for, either.
“He would wake up, seemed like every morning when he was eating breakfast, and pull up some NBA or college stats,” Josh said.
In the lows of his diagnosis and treatments, Truman experienced moments he may not have had the chance to otherwise.
Make A Wish sent Truman to the NBA All-Star Weekend. He met some of his favorite players, Luka Dončić and LeBron James, to name a couple. The family (which also includes two younger sisters) went down to spring training, and Truman threw out the first pitch at a Chicago Cubs game. The Minnesota Timberwolves invited them up for a game, and Truman met the players and received an autographed ball and jersey.
“I mean, the amount of support that we received was unfathomable,” Josh shared.
That support, that sense of community wasn’t limited to professional sports teams.
Josh Barnes is an assistant coach with the Adel-DeSoto-Minburn (ADM) boys basketball team. He’s been with the program through two head coaches, first under Aaron Mager and now with Trevor Mickelson.
The Tigers became a found community for the Barnes family, even Truman.
He would occasionally tag along to practice when his schedule allowed. Truman often pursued his own after-school activities, leaving little time to join Josh at high school practices during the season.
But in the summer, he became a part of the team.
If the high school players were going in for morning workouts, Truman would shoot baskets on an open net. He joined the Tigers on road trips and summer camps. He started to build a relationship with some of the players.
“He was always around the gym,” said Hudson Lorensen, a junior starter on this season’s squad. “We’d have open gyms, we’d have practice, he’d always be there shooting. You could tell he really loved the game, and we were really happy to have him around us.”
Josh remembered a team trip to Omaha, when the coaches and players went to Top Golf on a break from basketball. The team split into smaller groups; Josh and Truman joined a few high school players. In that moment, Josh watched his ADM players adopt Truman as another one of the guys, commenting on his shots and joking around with him.
Truman’s diagnosis came in the middle of basketball season last year, and the Tigers’ players and coaches were unwavering in their support of the Barnes family.
Just two weeks after Truman received an official cancer diagnosis, an already scheduled game against Boone on Jan. 26 turned into “Truman Tough” night.
Instead of the typical mix of red and black, the stands transformed into a sea of blue and pink – Truman’s favorite colors. Fans donned t-shirts and sweatshirts emblazoned with “Truman Tough.” ADM players wore those same t-shirts during warmups.
Volunteers sold wristbands with the same phrase. Truman’s friends and classmates – and their families – from St. Augustin packed the stands in support. The Tigers surprised Truman with an autographed Iowa State men’s basketball jersey.
“It was phenomenal, it was magical,” said Josh, replaying moments from that night in his head. “We were completely grateful for everything they did for us that night. We got to see this neat convergence of our two communities coming together to support him and our family.”
Josh admits that Truman may have felt a little embarrassed by being the center of attention, standing at center court and receiving that signed jersey as people in the stands – wearing a t-shirt with his name on it – cheered.
But what he remembers the most is that after all the attention, after the game that ADM won, Truman – like usual – had his signature big, old smile on his face.
One week later, the Tigers hosted Carlisle. The visiting team took to the court, not in their typical red and yellow warmups. Instead, the Wildcats wore blue and pink “Truman Tough” t-shirts.
No one at ADM had asked Carlisle to do that; no one gave the opposing team a few dozen free shirts. But some things are just bigger than basketball.
In the months between June and October, that community that came out for Truman Tough night continued to show up.
He’d lost the ability to talk and walk, but Josh and Collin could still communicate, and they followed his lead. The Barnes developed an open-door policy – essentially that those who wanted to visit Truman, could.
“It brought a lot of laughter, a lot of smiles,” Josh said. “It kind of helped us get through what was the worst times of our life but also provided some of the most joyful moments of our life.”
A GoFundMe campaign – originally set up to assist the family with medical expenses – attracted friends, acquaintances and strangers. Nearly 700 donations raised more than $100,000, which will now be used for the Truman Tough Memorial Fund to invest in cancer research and support families going through similar experiences.
“The community, they have constantly been with us through this journey,” Josh said. “And I can’t thank them enough for their support of Truman, of our family. That means a lot.”
The community support is also the reason Josh decided to return to the sidelines at ADM this season.
His son passed away less than two months before the start of the basketball season. The Barnes family was working through their grief, and Josh didn’t know how he would react to being around crowds and competition and celebration.
He didn’t attend the player parents meeting and, a couple days before practice started, Mickelson reached out. The Tigers head coach knew it wouldn’t be an easy decision for his assistant, but the players wanted to know if Josh would be back.
Hearing that the players wanted him there made Josh’s decision simple. He would come back and coach this year. But the players weren’t the only ones who impacted that decision.
“Knowing that Truman would want me here,” said Josh, about what drove his decision. “He wouldn’t want me to give up basketball because he passed away.”
Now a few months later, Josh knows that he made the right decision in his return to the sidelines with ADM basketball. It gave him a place to come and get joy – whether that’s through teaching the players or providing him with a distraction from his own mind.
It felt good to be a part of a team again.
“Coach Barnes, he’s been here the longest of any of our coaches,” said senior starter Wyatt Schweiger. “He’s been around the program a long time. We were super happy when we heard he was going to be back, because he’s been really special to us.”
“At the end of the day, basketball is just a game.”
That’s one of the things Lorensen learned over the last few months. He and Schweiger agreed that Truman’s fight – more than his death – gave them a little extra motivation this year.
“He gave us something to play for,” Schweiger shared. “Knowing what Truman went through, and his family … we’re playing for them. And I think when we have a bad basketball game or something, people have it worse in the world. It’s bigger than basketball.”
If the Tigers are playing for something bigger than themselves this season, it’s worked.
ADM compiled a 21-4 overall record en route to this week’s Iowa high school basketball state tournament. The Tigers defeated Pella in the substate final and advanced to the tournament for the first time in 13 years.
And at a Friday afternoon practice three days before the Tigers will travel to downtown Des Moines – to face Storm Lake on Monday night – the players were donning their “Truman Tough” shirts, some over practice jerseys and others under those jerseys, with just the pink sleeves poking out.
The Barnes family tried to find joy in the sadness of the last year.
That was a decision they made in the weeks after Truman’s diagnosis.
“If we’re going to go through this experience, we’re going to go through it with joy,” Josh said of the family’s mindset.
Josh still finds those moments of joy. Being around the basketball team has helped, like watching the Tigers defeat Pella and receive their state tournament qualifier banner. Like remembering how ADM missed its shot at the tournament last year – by two points – and that those players fought to make it this year.
On Monday, Josh will be on the sidelines, too, coaching the players who brought the Tigers back to the tournament for the first time in a dozen seasons. He’ll be wearing his “Truman Tough” wristband. He’ll be a part of the game Truman loved so much.
“It’s not over yet, but it’s the perfect ending to, at least for me, a hard last year,” Josh shared. “When you lose – whether it’s a game or a life – your mind kind of resets and it thinks about what’s important. And I don’t know this, but I’d like to think that’s in the back of some of those players’ minds.
“Maybe I can work a little bit harder or do this one thing or I can dive for that loose ball or step in front of somebody and take a charge. All of the little things that say, ‘Well, this guy’s not around to do that anymore. He worked his butt off to try to beat cancer. I can at least do something like that on the basketball court.’”
That is what Josh hopes his players take away from the last few months.
But in life, Truman’s impact is simple. It’s a lesson in how to live life, no matter how long or short it may be. Smile, be present, and have fun.
Just like Truman.
Alyssa Hertel is the college sports recruiting reporter for the Des Moines Register. Contact Alyssa at ahertel@dmreg.com or on Twitter @AlyssaHertel.
