Little did Alex Page know that when he visited a Seahawks practice it would be a life-changing experience.
That was in 2005, and Page already had been a fan of Shaun Alexander because Page was growing up in Fayetteville, Tenn., when Alexander was growing into an eventual NFL most valuable player and league rushing champion while playing at the University of Alabama.
Today, Page is a freshman at Alabama and studying to become an athletic trainer. He has also kept in close contact with Alexander and Matt Hasselbeck, the Seahawks former quarterback who he also met on the visit six years ago.
“Alex and Shaun are still in contact,” said Chuck Page, Alex’s father. “And he’s still in touch with Matt Hasselbeck, too. They also made a connection on our Make-A-Wish trip. Actually, when the team was on the bus on the way to the Super Bowl, Alex was in the hospital in Chicago. Alex’s cell phone rang and it was Matt. So Matt passed his cell phone around and Alex talked to four or five different players.”
Alex’s Make-A-Wish visit to the team’s old facility in Kirkland is immortalized at the Seahawks’ new digs at Virginia Mason Athletic Center, because there’s a huge banner hanging in the hallway outside the indoor practice facility of him walking off the practice field with Alexander.
It never would have happened – none of it – without the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
The Seahawks have been very good to the organization that grants wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions. The club, players and coaches do the visits the right way. There’s a jersey with the child’s name on it, and a cubicle in the locker room with his name above it. The players stop to say hello and give the child gloves, shoes and other items as they leave the practice field. He gets a tour of the facility by the player of his wish.
“The whole organization, the way it was setup, was just absolutely incredible,” said Scott Ricard, whose son Brandon had his wish to meet Hasselbeck granted in 2009. “It was far greater than anything that we’d ever imagined. Everything was just top-notch.”
The program is intended to change the lives of the children, but it also altered the lives of the players they came to meet.
“It’s a true honor and humbling just to know that you can make his day by hanging out with him,” is the way former middle linebacker Lofa Tatupu put it last year after meeting Kyle Cronk – whose wish was to meet Tatupu.
“I’m very grateful for the opportunity to meet him and just make his day. It’s an awesome experience.”
Cronk has since died of Hepatocelluar Carcinoma (cancer of the liver). But for that one day, he lived his dream.
Just like Sterling Grover, who was only 3 when he visited a practice in 1998 to meet former wide receiver Joey Galloway. Now 16, Grover is a junior in high school and has his sights set on a new dream: getting a car.
“He played all the sports at North Kitsap High School,” said Lisa Grover, Sterling’s mother – running through a list that includes football, baseball, wrestling and track. “But it was his choice to go to an alternative high school so he could find a job and get work credit for it.
“He said, ‘I want a car more than anything in the world.’ ”
As for that earlier wish, which turned into a day at the Seahawks, she said, “It was just a whole lot of fun. It was just an incredible experience.”
Despite his age at the time, and living with Rhabdomyosarcoma (cancer of connective tissue), Grover’s focus was on his dream. As player after player came up to him after practice at the team’s old facility in Kirkland, Grover would look past them. Finally, he yelled, “Where’s Galloway?”
As if out of dream, Galloway appeared and whisked Grover to the locker room. Rather than don the mini uniform that awaited him in “his” locker, Grover spilled into Galloway’s shoes and slipped on his helmet before shuffling blindly through the locker room.
Grover also was accompanied by his older brother, Spencer, who had shaved his head to match his brother’s. Spencer is now 23, in the Air Force and stationed in Germany.
“My boys were just ecstatic,” Lisa Grover said.
It’s the same story with Ricard, who is now 13 and “doing really well,” his father said.
“It’s hard to put into words what that visit, that day meant to Brandon,” Scott Ricard said. “He just really enjoyed it. It was just a great experience all the way around.”
The seed planted by Page’s visit has grown into his own foundation – Al’s Pals – which benefits the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Ronald McDonald House. Alex Page has Crohn’s disease and received his treatment in Chicago, so his parents have spent more than 125 nights in the Ronald McDonald House there.
“Shaun had his Shaun Alexander Foundation,” Chuck Page said, “so Alex decided he had to have a foundation because Shaun had one.”
One of the more amazing aspects of this program is the choices the kids make. After all, they are being granted a wish. They could opt for Disneyland, a family trip or just about anything. But the choice is meeting a Seahawks player.
“That’s all Brandon talked about, was coming to see Matt Hasselbeck,” Scott Ricard said. “They kept talking to him about all the things he could do. He could go to Disneyland. He could go down to Florida. We could do this. We could do that.
“He was just, ‘Nope.’ That’s what he wanted to do: meet Matt Hasselbeck.”
Added Chuck Page, “Going to the Seahawks and meeting Shaun Alexander was the only choice Alex wanted to make. And it paid dividends 10 fold.”
When you see the smiles on the kids’ faces, the reason behind their first-and-only choice is totally understandable.
“It’s such a great memory,” Scott Ricard said. “We look back at the photos all the time and talk about what a great time we had. Really, for our whole family, it’s just something that’s really a cornerstone thing we did when the kids were kids.
“Just the look on Brandon’s face was priceless.”
