K-State’s Jerome Tang called Wichita family in mourning moments before coaching Sweet 16

With 33 minutes left on the clock before the start of Kansas State’s Sweet 16 showdown against Michigan State Thursday evening, Jerome Tang was in the bowels of Madison Square Garden dialing a phone number of a stranger.

The K-State coach had never talked to Warren and Julie Koehn before he spoke with them minutes before the biggest win of his life as a head coach to offer his condolences for the loss of their daughter, Lillyan, a 19-year-old Wichita native and K-State student who tragically died in a car accident on March 10.

But in a way, the Koehn family said, they weren’t strangers at all because of the connection from their shared Christian faith.

“It was a personal phone call that was meant to be from one believer to another believer,” Julie Koehn said. “He didn’t do it for it to become public, so if anything comes from this, we would want it to be a beautiful example of how Christians not only treat each other, but how Christians treat other people.”

Lillyan, who graduated from Maize High School last spring, was an active member and middle school leader at Pathway Church in Wichita. Her faith was her foundation in life, which is why she immediately took a liking to Tang.

Since arriving in Manhattan, the first-year K-State coach has openly talked about his faith and the role religion plays in how he lives his everyday life. Lillyan always rooted for the Wildcats, but she was even a bigger fan of Tang in particular.

“They shared a faith in God, which drove them to love people and engage with people, even those who believed differently,” the Koehn family said in a statement. “To know that coach Tang was thinking of loving others and reaching out to hurting people like us, mere minutes before he took his team onto the floor for that Sweet 16 game, just speaks to the power of the body of Christ.

“He touched us, not because he is a great coach and a public figure, but because he has his priorities straight. His prayers for us along with so many others in our wonderful community are sustaining us.”

Tang was asked about the phone call on Friday at the podium in New York City ahead of K-State’s Elite Eight game against Florida Atlantic and said the story stuck with him because of the experiences in his own family.

“My older brother passed away about 14 years ago and my mom told me that was the worst pain someone could ever experience is burying your child,” Tang said. “It just stuck, I just remember that. Anytime I talk to my mom and my brother comes up, it’s like she’s about to cry. Like she can still feel the pain.”

Tang said after he heard the news, he went to Lillyan’s sorority on campus, Alpha Chi Omega, and ate dinner with her sorority sisters to try to ease their pain.