When Liam Banks lost his closest friend in March 2001, he distanced himself from teammates and family. He stopped going to class and started to dread lacrosse practice. He changed.

After a 20-month rediscovery — after a birthday spent grieving at a gravestone, after contemplating turning pro — Banks is back for his senior season.

Again, he’s changed.

A year earlier, he’d celebrated his 21st birthday. Young, popular and a Syracuse lacrosse star, Liam Banks had so much to celebrate. Half of his college career and a bright future lay in front of him. He’d play two more seasons for Syracuse and maybe a couple more of pro ball. Then he’d settle somewhere warm and start coaching lacrosse.

He spent his 22nd birthday, on Christmas Eve, visiting the gravestone of former girlfriend Stephanie Geralis. Depressed, broken and confused, Liam Banks had so much to mourn. He’d lost one of his closest companions and, in the process, lost himself. He felt distant from friends and family. He didn’t know if he’d play for Syracuse again, didn’t know what he wanted for the future.

“All I had was time in front of me, and I didn’t know how to fill it,” Banks said. “I had questions flowing through my mind, and I couldn’t find the answers. What am I doing with my life? Am I messing up my career? Am I messing up my education? What’s going to happen next? It was a scary feeling. In a year, I’d lost myself.”

Banks is back at Syracuse now, and by all accounts, his rediscovery is complete. On Saturday, he’ll play in his first regular-season college lacrosse game in nearly 20 months when the Orangemen travel to Army. Banks — the MVP of the 2000 national championship and the brains of SU’s offense in 2001 — has big plans. The senior attackman wants to lead his team to a second consecutive national title and ensure that the Syracuse offense runs smoothly.

“But I’m also just going to enjoy being back on the field,” Banks said. “Because I’ve been through a lot to get back here.”

‘That haunted me …’

Banks’ personal trial started March 14, 2001, when he learned Geralis, then a student at SUNY Albany, passed away in a car wreck. Banks and his Syracuse teammates had just returned from Florida when he got the phone call telling him the news: Geralis and her mother were driving on Long Island when their van collided with a tractor. Geralis was pronounced dead at the scene.

“When he heard the news, he definitely took an immediate downturn,” said Darlene Banks, Liam’s mother. “All of us did. She was almost like a member of the family. But it hit Liam hardest. You could tell that right away. Since high school, she’d been the girl he could confide in.”

So Banks packed his bags and headed to Long Island to spend time with friends and family. With head coach John Desko’s blessing, he missed a few days of practice. But, not wanting to let down his teammates, Banks missed Geralis’ funeral and returned to Syracuse to play against Johns Hopkins on March 17. Syracuse lost, 11-10, and Banks spent the rest of the season feeling like he’d let down Geralis and himself.

“In some ways, college sports is like a business,” Banks said. “I really regret that I didn’t take off that one day of work to be at her funeral. That haunted me for a long time.”

Banks played out the rest of the season, managing to finish second on the Orangemen in assists. He helped guide Syracuse to the NCAA semifinals, in which it lost to Princeton in overtime, 10-9. But when he was on the field, his mind wasn’t. It was stuck on sadness, stuck on Geralis.

“I pretty much wasn’t there,” Banks said. “I never really played with the team.”

Banks had trouble sleeping. He rarely went to class, spent more time alone and less with teammates. Looking for an escape from depression, he’d often wander to local bars. His brothers worried he was drinking too much.

He distanced himself from his family. He stopped calling home or talking to the people he cared most about.

“He figured if he wasn’t calling, then we wouldn’t know he was doing something we didn’t want him to do,” his mother said. “But we were worried about him. It was clear there was a problem.”

It was clear to Banks, too. But he wanted to escape from the problem, not deal with it. So he stuck out the school year and returned for summer school to take a few classes. He enrolled for the fall 2001 semester but quickly learned he wasn’t ready to tackle another school year or another lacrosse season.

For the first few days of that semester, he found it nearly impossible to get up and go to class. He dreaded practices, which he’d always looked forward to before.

“Finally, I just decided I was sick of fighting,” Banks said. “I was fighting the world, not listening to anybody, avoiding my parents’ phone calls. When you’re hiding from the people you love, that’s when you know there’s a problem.

“And I was hiding from myself, too. The grief was still there, and I was substituting other things to try to forget the grief. That just wasn’t healthy. I needed to leave.”

Banks informed Desko of his decision early in September. He needed to go home and take some time off. The coach understood, as did close friends and teammates Mike Springer and Billy St. George.

So Banks returned home to Long Island. He started working at the Gap and arranged nightly dinners with some of his older brothers. He structured his life, cut out free time and faced his depression. He contemplated his future. He thought about leaving Syracuse for good and turning pro.

But more than anything, he searched for answers. He talked often with his parents and older brothers who lived in the Long Island area. When Winter Break rolled around, he talked with friends who’d come home for the holidays. Finally, eight months after the accident, he went to visit Geralis’ grave for the first time. He cried.

“Going to her grave was something he needed to do,” his mother said. “That was a big step in accepting that she was gone. I’m not sure it changed his outlook, but it was the first step.”

‘I stopped blaming myself …’

The next came in early January 2002, when two of Banks’ brothers confronted him about his future. They picked up Banks and took him for a ride, not telling him where they were headed. They drove across the island and ended up in a vacant mall parking lot, where they got out of the car. They had something important to tell Banks.

“We told him he needed to get back to school,” said Kevin, one of Banks’ older brothers. “We didn’t want him to look back 10 years from now and feel like he’d made a huge mistake. We weren’t going to watch him mess up his life.”

Kevin, who battled alcohol problems a few years ago, told Banks other things, too.

“I told him alcohol could ruin an athlete’s career, and I’ve seen that first hand,” he said. “I was worried he would go down the same road I did. You could see in his behavior, and physically, that something needed to change. At first, he was a little taken aback, because we’d been so up-front with him. But eventually, he realized we were just trying to help him out.”

Banks listened. In mid-January he returned to Syracuse. He didn’t enroll in school and wouldn’t play lacrosse, but he wanted to be on his own again. He lived off campus with a friend. He filled his days playing backyard football and pick-up basketball. He began to enjoy the small things.

He continued to go out but not nearly so often. He found a girlfriend, who helped him to stop feeling sorry for himself and to answer all the questions.

“I came back here, and I accepted her death, which was huge,” Banks said. “I just did a lot of thinking. I stopped blaming myself, stopped feeling sorry for myself. I began to understand the huge opportunity that I had here and I wasn’t taking advantage of. I was blowing a scholarship by not going to class.”

During Easter, he went to Charlottesville, Va., to watch his little sister, Caitlin, play for Virginia. When he arrived, his family noticed a change.

“He looked better right away,” said Liam’s father, John. “He was tougher spiritually. He seemed happier to be with us, to be with the family.”

“It was a huge change in who he is and what he wants to do,” Kevin said. “You could just see a tremendous change in his face, in his smile and in his actions.”

‘A big recovery …’

By May 2002, Banks already thought he would re-enroll in school and play lacrosse the following season. But the clinching moment came as he listened to the radio as Syracuse beat Virginia, 12-11, in the NCAA semifinals. Driving in the car with his girlfriend, he listened to the game on the radio. Late in the game, he found himself screaming: “Somebody’s got to step up. Some senior’s got to step up. Next year, that’s going to be me.”

He re-enrolled in school and started working toward that goal. In the fall semester, he swears he didn’t miss a class. He finished with a 2.7 grade-point average, one of his best at Syracuse. He’s on track to graduate this summer with a major in speech communication and a minor in anthropology.

By all accounts, he had a great fall practice season. Though most of the players he entered SU with are gone, teammates and coaches said he hasn’t missed a step. He was selected as a preseason All-American, a postseason honor he enjoyed in 2000 and 2001.

Only his first practice back seemed hard. It felt like his first-ever practice, having been away so long.

“It was just nerves,” Banks said. “I wanted to prove myself again and show the younger guys. Plus, when you’re out that long, you question yourself a little and wonder if you’ve still got it. I proved that to myself.”

“He seemed to pick up right where he left off,” Desko said. “He’s moving well. He still understands the game. He’ll be our quarterback on the field. When the ball’s in his stick, he can find the open man. When he’s got it, the guys work even harder to get open, because they know he’ll get them the ball.”

Banks feels even more comfortable with junior Mike Powell and Springer, SU’s two biggest scoring threats. He knows where they’ll move and when. He knows just how to get them the ball.

“Everything seems to be in place,” Desko said, “for a fantastic senior season.”

For a bright future, too.

“He learned that life isn’t all geared toward having a good time for yourself,” his mother said. “It’s about other people, too. He’s calmed down a lot. He’s more sure of himself. He knows that there’s more to life than college.

“He talks a lot about what Stephanie would have wanted for him. He knows she wouldn’t have wanted him to throw it all away.”

He spent his 23rd birthday celebrating again. Stronger, wiser and more self-confident, Banks had so much to celebrate. He was back in school, doing well and happy to be there. Soon, he’d hear the Carrier Dome crowd scream when he threw a pretty pass or scored a goal. A trying 18 months were behind him, and he felt optimistic about his future.

“It’s been a big change again,” Banks said. “A big recovery, actually. I look back and see pictures of me depressed and not dressing well. It was a strange time in my life. So many decisions had to be made. But I made good ones, and it’s over now. It’s behind me, and I learned a lot through it.”

Published on February 23, 2003 at 12:00 pm