Issue date: 11/14/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Robbie Wroblewski Micah Rucker holds a photo of himself with his girlfriend, Rebecca Fissehastion Yacob, who was killed in an accident with a drunken driver Jan. 28, 2007. Rucker has started Respect For Youth, a university-sponsored branch of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Media Credit: Nora Maberry Push play to watch our video interview with Micah.

Media Credit: Nora Maberry Micah Rucker prays before Eastern's game against Eastern Kentucky on Oct. 6. Before every game, Rucker speaks to his girlfriend Rebecca, who was killed by a drunk driver in January.

Media Credit: Submitted photo Rebecca Yacob was killed by a drunk driver in January.

Media Credit: Nora Maberry RFY president Micah Rucker speaks to Senior women's soccer player Kellie Floyd during a RFY meeting. Rucker started the group after his girlfriend was killed by a drunk driver.

Media Credit: Nora Maberry Push play to watch video from a RFY UMadd meeting.

Click the icon to listen to what RFY coordinator Matt Kelly has to say about RFY.

Media Credit: Scott Richey Click the icon to listen to what RFY vice president, Cole Stinson has to say about RFY.

Media Credit: Nora Maberry Click the icon to listen to what Eastern head coach Bob Spoo has to say about RFY.

Media Credit: Nora Maberry Click the icon to listen to what defensive coordinator Roc Bellantoni has to say about RFY.

The tears did not come until later that day for Micah Rucker.

That day was Jan. 28.

Rucker's cell phone rang at 6 a.m. that Sunday morning.

But he was asleep in his Charleston apartment and missed the call.

When he woke up later that day around noon, a voicemail from his girlfriend's younger brother changed his life.

A drunk driver had killed Rebecca Fissehastion Yacob, his girlfriend of nearly two-and-a-half years.

"We were best friends"
Rucker remembers Yacob's beautiful smile.

He also remembers her brown eyes; he could see them "from about a mile away."

He remembers her dark black, shoulder-length hair and her 5-foot-4 frame.

"She was a very beautiful girl," he said.

Rucker remembers seeing her sitting on the curb of different buildings at the University of Minnesota, where the two met, always talking on her cell phone.

The 21-year-old Yacob came to the United States from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1998.

Rucker was a sophomore at Minnesota and Yacob was a freshman the first time the two spoke.

The two had had classes together, but didn't sit by each other.

Shortly before winter break in December 2004, the Minnesota football team threw a party. That's where the two started talking.

"We were hanging out and talking a little bit," Rucker said. "We danced a little bit. I asked for her number and she said, 'No, I see you on campus.'"

Rucker went home to Bonita Springs, Fla., soon afterward and said he couldn't stop thinking about Yacob.

Back on Minnesota's campus in mid-January 2005, it took Rucker a while to muster the courage to talk to Yacob again.

In fact, the first time he saw her on campus after break, he didn't say anything to her.

"She looked at me, I looked at her," he said. "I walked the other way. So I was like 'OK, I'm never letting that happen again.'"

The next week, Rucker approached her and the two talked again.

This time, Rucker came away triumphant, with her phone number and a good feeling.

"Ever since then until the …" Rucker's voice hesitates, unable to utter the word 'accident,' "we were best friends."

"She didn't make it."
Two days before Yacob was to leave for a semester to study abroad in Rome, an underage drunk driver struck her Toyota Camry on the driver's side while she drove home from a friend's house.

She was pronounced dead at the scene, around 2:30 a.m. on Jan. 28.

She was four blocks from her home in Apple Valley, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis.

Rucker heard the news nearly 10 hours later.

He woke up around noon and saw he had missed a call from Yacob's younger brother, Henock, and was surprised.

He normally didn't talk to her brother on the phone.

Rucker returned the call after Henock's voicemail said Rebecca had been in a bad accident.

Then, Henock delivered the news.

"He says that she's been in a bad accident and she didn't make it," Rucker said. "I asked to get her sister's phone number. I call her sister. And she tells me the same thing."

Rucker then received phone calls from his friends at Minnesota.

"So it really started sinking in," he said. "And then, what really made it sink in was when I called home and I told my mom. As soon as I told my mom, she broke down crying."

Rucker had spoken to Yacob around 10 p.m. the night before the accident. He said it was a quick conversation while Yacob packed in preparation for her trip to Rome.

"We actually didn't talk too long because she was busy and she told me she'd call me back," Rucker said. "And little do you know, that was the last time I talked to her."

"We knew we'd be together."
The phone was a key to making their relationship work.

Unhappy with his lack of playing time at Minnesota, Rucker decided to transfer.

His destination was Charleston, where Cole Stinson, his good friend the last eight years, had transferred to from Ball State. Rucker liked Eastern after visiting and felt it was a good fit for him and would give him more playing time.

Rucker flourished in his first season with the Panthers, catching 49 passes for 966 yards and earning multiple All-American honors.

He did all this while his girlfriend was nearly 560 miles away, pursuing a double major in global studies and international business with a minor in political science.

Despite the distance, he knew he still had her support.

"If it wasn't for her, I probably wouldn't be here today," Rucker said. "She stuck by my decision to come here to the fullest. She just told me to 'go there and make sure you don't forget about me.'"

Rucker went home to Florida after the end of the 2006 spring semester and then came to Eastern the following fall semester. Yacob still had two years remaining at Minnesota to finish her degree.

The couple went nearly six months without seeing each other.

"When I left there, she was really supporting me," Rucker said. "We knew it would just be temporary, me being here. She was going to be graduating this spring. So we knew that we'd be together. It was something we did for the short time to help out in the long run."

"It was such a quick trip."
Yacob traveled to Charleston the first weekend in October last year to see Rucker during Family Weekend.

Yacob flew into Champaign on that Friday night. Stinson and Rucker drove to pick her up.

Rucker was nervous. He put on an outfit he thought she would like, he said, and wanted to surprise her.

The first person Yacob saw coming down the escalator at Willard Airport, wasn't Rucker, but Stinson.

Rucker hid behind a pillar, trying to contort his body so Yacob wouldn't be able to see him.

"I was just sitting there," Stinson said. "And she walked down and was looking around. Then, he just sort of popped out."

"My heart was just beating and beating," Rucker said. "And I tried to time it up when she got down there. Then, I saw her and jumped out in front of her."

After the initial surprise, Yacob and Rucker went back to Charleston on Friday night, where Rucker made dinner for her.

The next day, Rucker had 10 catches for 180 yards and three touchdowns, all passes from Stinson, to help lead Eastern past Southeast Missouri 21-0. It was Rucker's best game up to that point in his brief Eastern career.

It was also the first time Yacob had seen Rucker play in person at Eastern.

"I'm pretty sure she probably put a little blessing on me that day," he said.

The couple went up to Champaign for dinner after the game, ate at the now-closed Smokey Bones restaurant, and came back to Charleston after that. The two didn't spend much time together on Sunday because Yacob's flight back to Minneapolis left at 7 a.m.

"It was such a quick trip," Rucker said.

Rucker dropped her off at the airport, said his goodbyes and came back to Charleston.

It was the last time Rucker saw his girlfriend alive.

"He's a man."
Rucker's personality is quiet and reserved.

That's the way he likes it, Rucker said.

The first thing he thought about in how to deal with Yacob's death was how she would have wanted him to handle it.

So he got up out of bed and went to his classes.

He went to his workouts with the track and field team and the workouts with the football team. The only day he wasn't on Eastern's campus was the day of Yacob's funeral.

"The only way I knew how to keep saying and doing everything right, was just keep doing the same stuff I'd been doing," Rucker said. "I just tried to keep myself busy and try and find new things to do."

Rucker flew out of Champaign at 7 a.m. the day of the funeral. A friend picked him up at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport and took him to the funeral.

A feeling of sadness was palpable at the funeral, Rucker said.

"Every seat was packed and there were people standing up everywhere. I had been to funerals before. Some family members' (funerals) before, but to just see her with the way her family was crying and all the emotion in the room. It was really tough."

Rucker spoke briefly about his relationship with Yacob during the funeral. He mentioned to the crowd about how Yacob got him to start eating Chinese food and other memories the two shared.

Rucker flew back to Champaign after the funeral and arrived back in Charleston late that night.

Nine months after the accident, Rucker doesn't shed a tear talking about it.

His voice is barely above a whisper; no emotion in his face and a calm, stoic demeanor envelops him.

Now, Rucker is out to make difference. He's started Respect for Youth, a recognized student organization that is against underage drinking, binge drinking and drinking and driving.

Eastern quarterback Bodie Reeder said Rucker's work to honor Yacob has helped him deal with the situation.

"He's a man. I'm 21 and I can't imagine going through things like that. I'd like to think of myself as a man, but I'm not," Reeder said. "He's really showing how brave he is, going out on a limb like this and dealing with these issues that a lot of people should never have to deal with."

"His first instinct is to help others."
Rucker's pain over the loss of his girlfriend motivated him to start RFY.

The 22-year-old senior is president of the group that uses Yacob's initials and is a university-sponsored branch of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

It became an RSO in April, said Cindy Tozer, Eastern's Director of Academic Services and one of the two faculty advisers for RFY.

The group has approximately 60 members.

RFY's coordinator Matt Kelly, senior journalism major, said the group isn't against drinking.

"If we were, we'd be very unpopular," he said. "We realize this is a time in many people's lives when they do drink. As long as you're not binge drinking, you're not drinking and driving, you're not underage drinking, then you're not going against our organization."

Rucker tells Yacob's story at the beginning of every RFY meeting.

"Basically I tell them the reality," he said. "What happened to Rebecca, what kind of person she was. She was just a college student who just wanted to better her life and move on. One bad night can change somebody's life. It's something that really can be prevented so that's something I really try and stress."

Senior women's soccer player Kellie Floyd, who is RFY's secretary, said she's amazed Rucker can even talk about the accident.

Floyd has a personal connection to drunk driving also.

Her parents' best friend was killed by a drunk driver.

"Some people have the tendency to blame other people," Floyd said. "His first instinct is to help others. I think that's a character a lot of people miss. I just think it's a great example to people and how they should respond to some things."

"That's quite a legacy to leave"
Roc Bellantoni found out about Rucker's situation the week of Yacob's accident. Eastern's defensive coordinator said he didn't notice a change in Rucker's demeanor when he spoke to him shortly after he learned of the tragedy.

"He wasn't hysterical," Bellantoni said. "He was down. But he's just an easy-going guy so it's hard to tell what he's thinking at times."

Stinson broke the news to Rucker's teammates and coaches on the football team.

Stinson said Rucker wasn't acting strange around the team and didn't let on about what happened either.

"I just didn't want them to be wondering what was going on if they did notice anything," Stinson said. "I just felt that it would make it easier if they knew and he didn't have to worry about telling them."

Rucker said talks with his teammates shortly after Yacob's death helped the grieving process.

Senior defensive end Michael Torres said the last time he and Rucker talked about Yacob's death was two weeks after the accident.

"As time goes on, he starts to stop thinking about it so much," Torres said. "I don't want to be the one to bring it up. No one really brings it up."

Rucker said he still zones out in class thinking about his times with Yacob.

"I just have so many memories of her," he said. "If it wasn't for her, I'd probably never have eaten Chinese food. She used to eat so much Chinese food. Whether it was going out to eat, watching movies, just being stupid and laughing at dumb things. She just wanted to help people out."

He's now getting the chance to do that as RFY's president.

Bellantoni said he's proud of Rucker for starting the organization and thinks Rucker can see he's making a difference.

"Whether he goes on to become an NFL star or not, his legacy here at Eastern Illinois is going to be incredible," he said. "He created a chapter here that didn't exist and hopefully, people will keep it carrying on in her memory for the rest of time. And that's quite a legacy to leave."

"Be smart, be careful, look after one another."
Rucker made a presentation to the football team in August about the dangers of drinking and driving.

Senior defensive tackle Tim Kelly said Rucker's story has changed the way the football team behaves off the field.

"It's not just a statistic anymore," he said. "Where there might not have been a (designated driver), before we're going out now, we always make sure there's one person we can call and we make sure all our bases are covered."

Bellantoni said he sees a noticeable difference in the players' behavior and demeanor this season when the team comes in on a Sunday.

"I will tell you after games on Saturday, guys have been saying 'Be smart, be careful, look after one another' a lot more than I've noticed in the past," he said.

Eastern football head coach Bob Spoo said Rucker's ability to turn a personal tragedy into a public triumph with RFY is a testament to Rucker's character.

The football team, players and coaches alike, all wore the red, RFY t-shirts on the first day of class to support Rucker.

"Maybe it is affecting him in ways we don't know about," Spoo said. "Hopefully, he can overcome it and get by it and move on. I think he's trying to do that. But, something that intimate, takes a while."

"She's in a better place."
Whether planned or not, Rucker ate Chinese food on what would have been Yacob's birthday.

She would have turned 22 on Oct. 4.

Her 23-year-old sister, Leya, said the family went out to Rebecca's grave on her birthday and laid flowers and candles nearby.

"I was in shock for about the first six months," Leya said. "For me personally, I'm a believer. I'm a Christian. She's in a better place. God took my sister for a reason."

Rucker talked to Leya earlier that day about how different it was without Rebecca around.

The driver that hit Yacob's car was 19-year-old Logan H. McFarland of Eagan, Minn. McFarland's blood-alcohol level at the time of the accident was .20, two-and-a-half times the legal limit, according to police reports.

McFarland had a third-degree murder charge dropped in early May. He is currently facing two counts of criminal vehicular homicide and three counts of criminal vehicular operation resulting in bodily harm, according to the Dakota County criminal complaint.

He has a Nov. 20 contested omnibus hearing, Dakota County Community Relations Director Monica Jensen said. An omnibus hearing is a pretrial hearing where the defense presents preliminary evidence.

A jury trial is scheduled for December. McFarland can face a maximum of 23 years in prison if found guilty of all five of those counts.

"I think justice is definitely not being done," Rucker said. "It just doesn't make any sense. You can be driving drunk, kill somebody and not get at least 20 or so years in prison."

"I'd just tell her how much I love her."
Rucker said he and Yacob talked about marriage.

Now, Rucker talks to her before every football game.

"Every game I get down on a knee and try and talk to her," he said. "On my tape on my wrists, I put RFY. Her favorite number was four so I always hit my chest four times and put the four up or kiss my hand or something like that. Anything I can do to bring her memory back."

Rucker said he would talk to Yacob for hours upon hours if given the chance now. But he'd make sure to include three key words.

"I'd just tell her how much I love her," Rucker said.

Yacob's presence still lives on in Rucker. He's now doing whatever he can to make sure nobody has to go through the anguish he went through - and still goes through - in losing a loved one to a drunk driver.

"When I was at Minnesota, she was somebody who really took care of me," he said. "We were best friends. That's why I wanted to start this organization because she always told me to give back, no matter what I do. She was just such a great person. There's no way I'm going to let her name die out."

Click here to view our slideshow about Micah Rucker.

Click here to read Matt Daniels' column about Micah Rucker's creation of RFY.

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