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Believe in miracles? Joseph Frazier’s family does

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John Wooden: “You can’t live a perfect day until you do something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”

Joseph Frazier is in a coma.

Joseph, 28, was a standout basketball player at Pasadena Muir High and Cal State Northridge before working last year as an assistant coach at Calabasas High.

A hit-and-run driver, who has yet to be caught, knocked him off his motorcycle Aug. 25.

Joseph was wearing a helmet, but when he arrived at Northridge Hospital he was non-responsive, doctors saying his head injuries were so severe nothing could be done.

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What happened next are the makings of a miracle.

Joseph’s friend, Sean Mann, was the first to arrive, Joseph’s mother calling it a blessing because “Sean is so persistent,” and apparently insistent.

Sean told doctors they didn’t know Joseph. “This is an amazing person who helps a lot of people. Do what you can to make sure he lives.”

The doctors took Joseph off a breathing machine, waiting five minutes as a test of survival. Joseph continued to breathe, but of course he did, as those who know him will tell you.

Doctors operated, the first of five or so brain procedures, all kinds of complications along the way, but now his mother Tai is saying, “Five weeks and a day out and he’s still here.

“If you ever saw him play in the fourth quarter, the final minute or seconds, he never gave up,” she says. “This is my little warrior; I have faith he will one day make a full recovery.”

From the beginning the medical folks said they had done everything they could. One doctor told Tai that Joseph would not want to live this way.

But no surprise, Joseph has a family as determined as most now describe him.

“A neurologist can look at him and maybe it doesn’t look hopeful,” Tai says. “But as I told one of them, ‘Have you ever seen a miracle? No, well, this will be yours.’

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“Every single day there is something positive,” she says, her day beginning and sometimes never ending as she stays overnight in his hospital room — taking heart in every twitch or movement.

“I hold on to something Joseph told me one time: ‘Momma, even though I’m not there, no matter where I am, I’m always with you in spirit. You’ll always feel me.’ If ever a mother was prepared for something like this — I have his words in my head.”

Joseph’s friends say he was a break away from making the NBA — Cleveland Cavaliers and former UCLA center Ryan Hollins, a lifelong pal, saying, “I’ve never known anyone in the NBA to have more heart and desire than Joseph.”

Joseph was on his way to meet friends that night, giddy with the good news he could now begin his plan to provide private basketball instruction.

Later friends would find a YouTube clip showing Joseph bouncing a basketball in the dark at 2 a.m. while delivering a motivational talk to the kids he would teach.

“I now play it for him,” says Tai.

Family and friends do not leave Joseph alone. Hollins, all 7 feet of him, spends many a night and all night long scrunched in a chair beside Joseph’s bed.

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“We talk, we laugh,” says Hollins, and while doctors might say Joseph remains non-responsive, there are those who love the guy who know differently.

“When Joe comes out of the coma, I expect him to say, ‘I heard everything you said,’” says Hollins. “If it is God’s will that it is his time, no one can control that. But if it’s a matter of fighting for the opportunity to live, then the Joseph I know is going to do that.”

Tai begins each morning telling her son what day it is, while massaging his feet.

She holds her son’s hand between hers as she tells him Friday they are packing his stuff and moving him out of his apartment.

“Oh, sorry babe,” she says when she feels his hand move. “I told you — you had to wake up by the 30th so we wouldn’t have to give up the apartment.”

And so it goes all day, every day, unwavering in her resolve. “Because I’m his mom,” she says.

She reads to him. “Well, Joseph,” she says, “Chapter 5 is about health and healing, but I think we’re going to be here for awhile so we might as well start with Chapter 1 and read all 31.”

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“The other day he had one eye slanted open. So I told him, ‘OK, Joseph, shut your eyes tight.’ It took him about two minutes, but he shut his eyes tight. I know he hears me.”

Police have not caught the driver who left Joseph wrecked, but rather than dwell on it, Tai talks about the stranger who stayed with her son at the accident scene until help arrived.

“He didn’t know Joseph,” she says. “He just did the right thing. I just want my son to get up; catching the driver or not is not going to change that.”

The hospital could not contain all those wanting to visit. Joseph once told his college roommate there were 365 days and he wanted to meet someone new each day. He apparently succeeded.

The list of people who want to gush about Joseph exceeds the space here, Dr. Kenneth Hepps, for example, now dedicated to helping because his son played for Joseph.

“The kids just loved him,” Hepps says, clapping his hands as Joseph did so often to encourage his players.

Joseph’s family, which now includes Mom, Dad, stepfather and stepmom, have pooled their efforts to support each other. Dad spends Thursday to Sunday with his son, while Tai refers to Joseph’s stepmom as an angel.

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“We’re all in this together and believe the same thing,” Tai says. “It’s going to take a miracle, but I’m not going to question God’s timetable. It just means I have to learn patience.”

The journey just beginning and life changed forever for so many — friends, and those wanting to do something for someone who will never be able to repay them, will gather Sunday at Calabasas High.

What began as a benefit game between two high schools has now attracted 15 along with a group of NBA players, referees and other volunteers. They will make it a daylong event, games, raffles, auctions and autographs, a $10 donation suggested, helping Joseph.

“It’s overwhelming to see the number of people Joseph touched,” Tai says, pausing to check her emotions. “It makes you proud as a mother.”

t.j.simers@latimes.com

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