Philadelphia Union helps kids ‘Kickasso’ cancer
CHESTER » Ryan Cartafalsa’s eyes lit up when the shoebox opened Friday afternoon.
Eight weeks ago, the 9-year-old from Havertown sat down with Philadelphia Union midfielder Brian Carroll for a meet-and-greet and design session. The idea was for Cartafalsa and 14 other kids aged 3-17 who were battling or had survived cancer to meet members of the Union and design cleats that would be created by the artist Troy Cole, a.k.a. Kickasso.
When they were unveiled Friday, Cartafalsa was blown away.
“I was surprised a lot,” he said, “because it looks really good.”
Those cleats will eventually belong to the kids who helped design them, after they watch them worn by Union players for warmups of the Sept. 23 home game against Chicago. Friday, though, the designers and their player buddies, 15 members of the Union in all, got to meet the club’s brass and the artist to see their concepts in the flesh at Talen Energy Stadium.
Cartafalsa’s unique design wedded the passions of the fourth-grader at Lynnewood Elementary. The dayglow yellow cleats are inspired by his favorite books, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. He added an MLS logo for his Union fandom – he and his family have attended a handful of games this year, according to his mother, Trish. The instep on each shoe features the cartoon Spongebob Squarepants and, in a fantastical marriage of his favorite fictional and real-life creatures, a Spongebob-inspired giraffe that really wowed Cartafalsa.
Cartafalsa has enjoyed the entire experience. Diagnosed with a brain tumor just before his second birthday, he endured surgery, two rounds of chemotherapy and 33 proton radiation treatments. Trish still dutifully counts the months, proudly proclaiming six years and nine months of cancer-free scans.
Despite the clean bill of health, Trish still notices delays in Ryan’s development relative to his peers. While he loves sports, his health challenges leave him slightly behind classmates in certain physical areas, so getting the pro athlete experience is something particularly special.
“He loves sports,” Trish said. “… Anytime he can interact with people who play sports, it’s his happy place.”
“It’s been good, watching them practice and them helping me draw,” Ryan said. “It’s been fun.”
The project is the first of its kind, even for an artist like Cole, who has drawn national acclaim. Cole, whose Kickasso Kustoms business is based in California, has been widely recognized for his work with the NFL’s “My Cleats, My Cause” campaign, a one-week relaxing of the league’s draconian uniform strictures to grant the reason why people watch the league a measure of self-expression. Cole has designed more than 300 cleats for that program.
This endeavor resonates differently, though, Cole said. Where the Union players got to work with the kids in person, Cole only knew them through the designs he was sent. Friday, Cole got to feel his connection, putting a face to the inspiration he’d been given.
“Meeting them, I knew exactly when they told me the overall design, I was like, I know exactly which one is yours,” Cole said. “It was great.”
The event was introduced by Union reserve forward Charlie Davies, who checked all of the boxes on the significance of the day. Davies survived a bout of cancer last season, in remission for just over a year. His wife, Nina, survived lymphoma at age 12. And the couple’s twins, born last spring, spent months in intensive care before heading home.
That experience gave Davies special empathy for the range of emotions in the audience.
“This is something that I strive to do, to make a child’s day better, to put a smile on their face,” Davies said. “… If I could do this every day, I would. It’s one of those types of events, and to get a talented artist like Kickasso to come and design these shoes is very, very special and something that I hope we do more often.”
Cole’s remarks before the assembled crowd were brief, by design. While the kids received concrete gifts on stage Friday, plenty of others in the room got something profound for giving back.
“It hits super close to my heart,” he said. “I got a little emotional up there because I do have a 10-year-old daughter and I couldn’t imagine the news. And to just be able to bring a little bit of joy, a little bit of sunshine into their battle and to see that today, that was super huge for me.”
“If you don’t get something out of this, there’s something wrong with you,” Davies said. “I think all the players were amazed at the cleats, the work and the reactions of the kids, which is what it’s all about. … I’ll do this for the rest of my life. I hope to inspire kids and let them know never to give up and always have hope and you can achieve everything that you want to achieve.”
As for Ryan, he’ll be starting intramural soccer in the fall. The boots are sized to Carroll’s feet and aren’t going to fit him any time soon. (That didn’t stop Alejandro Bedoya’s buddy, Liam Sheridan, from being so enamored of his new boots that he asked to try them on on the spot.)
Whatever the footwear, Ryan is looking forward to the season even more now.
“It’s fun because you get to run back and forth, and I like running a lot,” he said.