"Tim [Victor's friend] called me and said we got to take Vic to the hospital today, he said there's no way he can be there Tuesday," says Victor's former coach, Bumper Reese. "He said that would be it for him." "He said, 'I'm sorry to call you but I knew you'd want to know.' He said we lost him, and it's one of those night you don't sleep well after." Victor graduated from Red Bank in 1998. As a lineman for the Crimson Tide, he made a name for himself as a successful student athlete. Last summer he was diagnosed with medullary renal cell carinoma, a cancer that attacks the liver, then the lungs and heart. Doctors gave Victor only 3 months to live. "Honestly I was just grateful that he no longer had to suffer," says former coach Susan Thurman. Reese and Thurman visited their student in his final hours. "I know in my heart that he's at peace now, he's healed and there's no struggling anymore," she says. At the end of the month, Victor Ellis's legacy will be solidified here at Red Bank High school. The school will retire his jersey number and induct him in their athletic hall of fame. A scholarship in Victor's name was created at Alabama, not for athletes, because Victors said they had it good already. It would be for students who couldn't afford college. That's the kind of well rounded person his coaches say he was. 
[0]Tuesday was to be a special day for Victor Ellis. Red Bank High School- the place that helped make him a star athlete- planned to retire his jersey.
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[0]The school postponed the ceremony. Twelve hours later, Ellis passed away. His battle with a rare, aggressive form of cancer over.
[0]He survived through 7.
[0]"We're going to go just as if he's here, we're still going to do his full induction. We're going to honor Victor Ellis the athlete, and Victor Ellis the student," says Reese.
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