Bringing fantasy football to sick kids at hospital
Jake Herman, 16, was a baby the first time his mom was hospitalized with cancer.
Last year, Jake’s sophomore year at Walter Payton College Prep in Chicago, his mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and needed a double mastectomy.
“I had to be in the hospital a lot longer than I planned,” Kerri Herman, Jake’s mom, said.
She developed an infection that complicated her recovery. Her stay extended through Jake’s spring break, and Jake spent every day by her side.
“Telling stories, telling jokes, watching TV, watching movies,” Kerri said. “We played cards.”
At the end of spring break, Jake sent his mom a text: “That was fun.”
“I was like, ‘Are you kidding? That was your spring break!’ ” Kerri said. “He was like, ‘Just spending time with you was fun.’ And it was! He made it fun. He made me laugh.”
It also gave Jake an idea: What if he looked for ways to make hospital stays a little more fun for a bunch of kids?
In addition to keeping his mom company, Jake has spent his fair share of time in a hospital with recurring bouts of periorbital cellulitis, a painful eye infection that kept him hospitalized at one point for five days.
He knows how the days can drag. He knows how worry can set in and refuse to budge.
So Jake decided to host a fantasy football party at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
He and his friends have spent years doing daily fantasy drafts, wherein each person gets a (fantasy) budget to put together a roster of players from different real-world teams. At the end of that day’s real-world games, participants are ranked on how well the players on their fantasy team performed.
Jake figured a Sunday morning of talking football and statistics and salary caps, followed by some football watching, would be a fun escape for a couple of dozen kids at Lurie.
He dubbed it “Pass It Forward” and attached a fundraising effort to it, hoping to collect $7,500 for Lurie’s Family Life Center, a respite area for patients and their families. (He was up to $6,400 by Nov. 25.)
He reached out to former Chicago Bears linebacker Mickey Pruitt. Jake’s a basketball guy, but he and his friends attended a few of the Bears youth football camps that Pruitt directs.
Kerri Herman also knew Pruitt through his work at Chicago’s chapter of The Base, an organization that helps athletes from underserved communities reach college and career success. (Pruitt is a member of The Base’s advisory committee.)
“Right away I said, ‘Yes, I would love to help Jake out,’ ” Pruitt said. “I like doing stuff like this for kids who are hurting a little bit and need an uplift.”
Pruitt, 54, graduated from Robeson High School on Chicago’s South Side and played five NFL seasons, the first three (198890) with the Bears.
On Sunday morning, Nov. 24, he showed up at Lurie with Jake, bearing a whole bunch of autographed Bears hats and a head full of football knowledge that he was delighted to share with eager patients.
“I’m really not into fantasy football,” Pruitt told me. “The word ‘fantasy’ doesn’t thrill me.”
But he was happy to help a roomful of kids decide which running back to group with which quarterback, which tight end and which wide receiver.
“It was a fun way to study the game and study what the players do,” Pruitt told me the day after the Lurie event. “Some of the young adults, they knew all about football. Others didn’t. But everyone got really involved and it was just great to see.”
For kids who were too sick to leave their rooms and gather in the hospital’s communal space, Jake and Pruitt arranged to have draft papers and Bears gear delivered to their rooms.
At the end of Sunday’s NFL games, shortly after the Green Bay Packers lost to the San Francisco 49ers, Jake tallied up everyone’s scores and reported back to George Hardin, the adolescent activity coordinator at Lurie, so Hardin could deliver prizes to the first-, second- and third-place finishers.
“And it could be I steered them all wrong,” Pruitt said with a laugh. “They might be looking at it afterward thinking, ‘Man, he didn’t know nothing.’ ”
When Jake was in sixth grade in primary school, he was partnered with a kindergarten buddy to mentor and watch over. That buddy, Nathan Polonsky, is now a 10-year-old fifth grader who happens to love football, specifically the Bears.
“He’s a little frustrated with them this year, but he’s a true fan,” Mandee Polonsky, Nathan’s mom, told me. “He watches every game.”
When Jake first conjured his Pass It Forward idea, Nathan was the first person to whom he reached out.
“Every decision he’s made — What prizes are we going to get? What are the fundraising goals? — he asked Nathan,” Mandee Polonsky said. “As the mom of a fifth grader, you think about what your kid could grow up to be, and I just can’t think of a better role model than Jake. He’s just an awesome guy.”
Nathan wasn’t allowed to join the draft party because Lurie requires visitors to be 16 or older. But he was able to meet Pruitt in the lobby beforehand.
And he was instrumental, Kerri Herman said, in every step of planning and executing the event.
“Jake and Nathan are bigger than big,” Pruitt said. “Just looking at these young adults giving their time and their energy to help others who are hurting, that’s big. We don’t have enough of that in the world today.”
Jake is planning to host similar events at Lurie for other sports. He envisions a fantasy hockey party, a fantasy basketball party and a fantasy baseball party.
“I just want to bring them some happiness and get their mind off their illness,” Jake told me. “I know, personally, I gain happiness, too, from seeing people feeling better and having fun.”
When we’re tallying the things for which we’re grateful, I’m adding Jake and Nathan, their parents and Pruitt to my list. Generous spirits and lovely role models, one and all.
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