22.
Nobody knows exactly why Casey Taub chose that number for his jersey in fourth grade — but it was a number that would stick with him throughout his life, and even after death.
While many kids are known to pick 9 or 10, numbers representative of soccer’s biggest stars, Casey liked to march to the beat of his own drum. He was certainly not your typical 10-year-old.
Known as a history buff who would strike up intelligent conversations with adults at his parents’ parties, Casey had a maturity beyond his years.
“How is there a 40-year-old man trapped in a 10-year-old body?” his dad, Jonathan, often wondered.
But the young man would sadly not make it to the wise old age his persona projected.
At age 14, Casey started to experience an unusual dizziness that called for concern. His parents thought he came down with a treatable case of vertigo, but a later diagnosis proved much more grim: brain cancer.
“Initially I thought it was something a lot of kids recover from,” said his father. “Then we saw it was a mutated tumor, which you never want to hear.”
At just 16, the lively teen was forced to face the reality that he might not make it past high school graduation.
Photo Credit: Jonathan Taub
“Am I going to die?” he asked his dad.
Unsure of what to say to be both honest and comforting, Jonathan replied with the first reflex response that popped into his head.
“You immediately tell him, ‘No.’” he recalls. “What do you do? You pray.”