Jakeem Grant Jr. is talking like a Minion again.

It's what the 2-year-old does these days - that and smacking his father with a pillow before creating a mad chase throughout the apartment.

His father, Jakeem Grant Sr., thinks he's a little too obsessed with the yellow animated characters in overalls, but secretly it always makes him smile.

"When I come home and they say 'daddy', that's all you can ask for," Grant said. "It brings joy to your heart."

The Texas Tech receiver and father of three (Jakeem Jr. was joined by twins Kaylie and Kylie on Sept. 21, 2014) is still adjusting to his new life - his safe life and the new home he has made with his fiancée Ranysha Livingston in Lubbock.

"When my son was born, I was (like), 'Wow, this is crazy. I am a dad now and a young parent at that. I am still trying to get through college,'" Grant said. "Now, my senior year, I am older and wiser and once you have your second - and third at the same time - you know a lot more from experience, and being a parent is rewarding."

Grant knows that life isn't always going to be easy for his children.

But he refuses to let them experience life the way he did.

In the last few years, Grant's brother was shot, one of his close friends was murdered and the majority of his childhood friends went to jail or died young.

"I come from a rocky neighborhood," Grant said. "I look at life like this: I want my kids to have what I never had.

"I can't have my family see that, to go through anything like (I did)."

The call

Jakeem Grant was at Ranysha's house when his cell phone rang.

It was Emory Miller, his friend and former quarterback at Mesquite Horn. Miller had been at a party with Jakeem's older brother, Markeith Whittaker, on April 18, 2010.

Someone brought a gun.

Markeith, who was in the car with Jakeem's younger brother, Keonte Grant, was shot. The bullet went through Markeith's neck and into his collarbone where it still remains five years later.

"It wasn't a great scene. ... It was terrifying that my big brother could leave me, could leave this Earth," Jakeem Grant said. "It is a memory I will always have. It was horrifying."

Fearing the worst and not knowing if Keonte had been hit as well, Miller came to get Grant and together they rushed to the hospital. Once Grant arrived, he saw his brother lying in a hospital bed. The constant beeping of the monitors was the only sign of life he had.

He called his mother, walking her through what happened.

He even put his older brother on the phone.

"My first thought was, 'Thank God my kids are OK for giving them a second chance.' I thought everything was going to be OK since they were talking to me," Grant's mother, Sylvia Whittaker, said. "But then I got there and I saw.

"It was something no mother ever wants to see; to see their son lying there."

But, it wasn't unexpected.

Grant knew the path his brother had chosen.

"I grew up around gang violence," Grant said. "I didn't want to be into that. I watched my big brother go through it and my little brother started to get on the wrong path. It was rough for me. I was playing football then and I had to wonder if my brother was going to make it through this?

"It got to me. I stopped talking to everyone."

Still, Grant couldn't escape it.

Not yet.

Losing a friend

Every time Grant came home from college, he tried to get his brother, Keonte, and his friend Amrit Tejan to go with him to the movies.

Or the mall.

It didn't really matter. He just wanted him off the street.

"I knew (Tejan) was in that lifestyle," Grant said. "I always told him to come and spend the night and tried to get him to do anything besides what he was doing. I told him there are other ways to get money, to get a real job. It might not be as much as you want or think you need, but it is money.

"I tried to tell him it would get better."

It didn't, though.

Tejan was found dead in his vehicle on May 21, 2015, just before 1 a.m. The red, two-door Saturn had left the roadway and struck a tree in the 4200 block of Bobtown Road in Dallas.

The accident didn't cause his death, though.

Tejan was shot in the head.

He was 21.

"He was a good kid, too. But when you get older, you go your path," Sylvia Whittaker said. "They used to always be mad at me because I would make them come home before the street lights come on. There is nothing out there but violence after night time."

Tejan's death was another reminder what awaited Grant if he didn't focus on his family - if he didn't focus on his future.

"I knew then for sure that there is only one way out of that lifestyle," Grant said.

And he had been running from it his entire life.

"It was an OK neighborhood, but some of the people there were a little rough," Sylvia Whittaker said. "I used to always say (my kids) were guilty by association. I told them you can't hang around these people.

"Now, Jakeem has watched a lot of his friends pass away slowly or go to jail. He watched his friends throw their lives away. I am so glad he chose this path because at the beginning he wanted to quit."

Wrong place, wrong time

Billed as "Krunkness 2014," the party was promoted as "the biggest college night to hit Lubbock, Texas," according to organizers who publicized the event on Facebook.

On Oct. 18, 2014 more than 1,800 people crammed their way into El Fronteriso, a faded blue, 20,000-square-foot club on the 12000 block of U.S. 87.

It didn't take long for things to get out of hand.

"We were just partying and then we heard about three shots," said Alvin Jefferson, who was among the partygoers and was shot in his right shoulder. "I don't know what caused the fight.

"We were in a circle dancing. We all hit the floor. I didn't know what was going on. I just knew to get down."

At least 20 shell casings were recovered from the scene, according to a police report at the time of the incident.

"It was a very, very large party." Lubbock County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Lt. Bryan Taylor said that night. "Can you imagine throwing a couple of guns in there, too? You had two guys trying to kill each other, from what we understood."

All Grant wanted to do was escape.

The Texas Tech wide receiver was inside the club at the time and, like everyone else, tried to get out as the party turned into melee.

In the madness, Grant had been stabbed. He was treated, receiving stitches "under his chin area," according to the police report.

"If somebody had a laceration, then the obvious thing is that somebody got cut, but during a melee like that, there's no telling what cut him," Taylor said.

When Whittaker saw him, she couldn't stop crying. It was like déjà vu. Markeith had been shot on April 18. Jakeem was stabbed on Oct. 18. Both around 1 a.m.

"When I went to the hospital and saw that gash. ... He was two inches from his main jugular getting cut," Sylvia Whittaker said. "For my kids to have a second chance. All they have is a scar and a memory."

Livingston was asleep when she got the call. It had been only a couple of weeks since she returned home after giving birth to their twins.

"My friend came in and she was being hysterical and I was trying to figure out what was wrong," Livingston said. "I was scared he was dying. I was trying to stay calm because his momma was already crying so hard.

"But when I first saw him he asked, 'Baby, you want to watch this movie with me?' And I was like, 'What?' You are sitting in the hospital and you want to watch a movie? ... But it let me know I didn't have to panic.

"He was trying to keep me and his momma from crying."

Markeith Whittaker just felt guilty. He didn't want to go out that night and decided to stay at home.

He wasn't there to look out for his brother.

"I will never forget that day. I have been through a lot in my life," Markeith Whittaker said. "When I didn't go I felt like it was all my fault. It hurt me. To this day I won't let him go anywhere by himself."

The altercation left Grant frustrated more than anyone, though.

He thought he had left that life behind him.

"After the altercation he had where he got stabbed, he started to struggle a lot," Sylvia Whittaker said. "He tried to take on the world by himself. He did not tell anyone he was having trouble financially, mentally or emotionally. He just dealt with it."

Double trouble

Before the plane even took off, Grant was asleep.

It was the first solid sleep he had gotten in more than a week, but when the plane landed in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Grant was still in a daze.

The twins had been born more than two weeks early and Kylie - the younger by a few minutes - began to have trouble breathing.

"Both of the twins came out breached, but Kylie got stuck and they had to put her on a breathing machine for three days," Livingston said,

Kylie wasn't allowed to leave University Medical Center for more than a week. And less than 48 hours after the birth of her twins, Livingston had a seizure. Epileptic as a child, Livingston said her symptoms returned shortly after she returned home from the hospital.

It put a toll on her body. Jakeem watched their son at night and, then went school and practice during the day.

"To see (Grant) go back and forth from school to practice to the hospital every day like clockwork made me proud. He had to come home and take care of his son and be up there with the babies and the momma," Whittaker said.

"He got maybe two hours of sleep a day."

That night in Stillwater - even though the Red Raiders lost to Oklahoma State 45-35 - Grant managed to catch a career-high 12 passes for 100 yards and a touchdown.

"I was in season and I was like, 'I have to get home,'" Grant said. "My fiancée was having to battle and feed three kids and making sure the diapers and the bottles were taken care of, and I felt like she needed me there with her.

"I was stressed out and sometimes and I let it get to me during games."

By the time he hit Manhattan, Kansas, the next week, all Grant wanted to do was sleep. Again, he was Tech's leading receiver, catching seven passes for 90 yards and a pair of touchdowns. The Red Raiders weren't as sharp, falling 45-13.

"I was so tired," he said. "It was just exhaustion. I was with her the entire time, then (the twins) wouldn't sleep through the night. It was overwhelming."

A year later, Grant thinks he has it figured out. He is leading the Red Raiders with 56 receptions for 774 yards and four touchdowns.

"He had so much on his plate, he almost lost it all because he would not tell a soul," Sylvia Whittaker said. "Not even the coaches."

Supporting the family

Grant wouldn't stop eating noodles.

They were cheap. And he had bigger concerns than filling his own belly.

He had a family to provide for now.

"He would eat noodles for days. Sometimes just a sandwich," Sylvia Whittaker said. "I told him, 'You can't do that, son.' He wouldn't listen, though. He thought it would burden on me to know he was struggling financially. So, he would go with nothing in his pocket."

But Grant has always sacrificed everything for his family, even from the beginning.

As soon as he got the call from his mother that Livingston was in labor with Jakeem Jr. on March 26, 2013, he rushed to Dallas, making the five-hour drive without even thinking about it.

"It was 2 a.m. and I was trying to blow his phone up with all the texts and phone calls, but he is such a heavy sleeper," Livingston said. "Finally, when I got a hold of him he rushed to Dallas to make sure he was there to see his son born. ... He was not going to miss it.

"That was when I knew he was always going to do anything for our kids."

But Grant didn't stop at just sacrificing a few meals or making a long drive in the middle of the night.

Soon, he was pestering his brothers to move to Lubbock - he wanted to be there for them 24/7. One by one, they came. Markeith moved first, coming to Lubbock more than three years ago. The last to move out was Sylvia, who sold her house and moved to Lubbock in August.

"It is better to see my brother and his success," Markeith Whittaker said. "I always wanted to go to college and coming out here and staying with my brother gave me an opportunity to get my life together. He brought the whole family together.

"It's funny, growing up he wasn't a guy to say, 'When I grow up I am going to have a big family.' Life kind of hit him and to see how he is becoming a good father and that he is going to graduate, it is a blessing.

"My brothers look up to me, but really I look up to him."

When he graduates in the spring, Grant will become the first member of the family to finish college with a bachelor's degree.

"My mom being a single parent and raising all three of us," Grant said, "she did everything she could possibly do. Seeing her struggle put a chip on my shoulder to make the most of every moment.

"It is hard sometimes. You are busting your butt to make a better living for them so they can have whatever they want."

That got easier for Grant, when the Power Five conferences voted to give student-athletes scholarships that covered full cost of attendance in the spring - an increase of more than $4,500 to the average Tech student-athlete.

Few were happier at the increased stipend than Grant.

"The scholarship checks went up, and that is a big help on the financial end," he said. "I have learned to manage that money, and it isn't as hard now that I am a senior because I have matured."

That maturity doesn't come without painful memories, though.

"I don't even go out anymore because of what happened last year," Grant said. "It is a life-changing event. Anything can happen at any moment. You have to be around the right crowd and stay away from trouble.

"It gets tough at times, but life is tough. Sometimes, the only way out is the way through."