VIRTUAL STAR
Video game maker Electronic Arts gives B.C. teen a kick at stardom in FIFA 17
Teen soccer star Kenton Doust is working hard to get his game back after successfully battling brain cancer earlier this year.
In the meantime, video-game maker Electronic Arts has given him a kick at virtual stardom in its new FIFA 17 release.
In answer to his request to the Make-a-Wish Foundation last July, EA Sports created a digital card that allows him to play as himself against online gamers around the world.
“It’s in the section of the game called Ultimate Team,” explained Kenton, 15, who will be the only person playing the new game to take to the virtual field as himself.
One of his online competitors is soccer star Russell Teibert, who befriended Kenton during the course of his treatment.
“He’s got a way better player ranking than I do on FIFA,” Teibert, the Vancouver Whitecaps midfielder, said.
Kenton has played soccer competitively since he was nine, and the Courtenay youth was chosen as a striker for the Comox Valley select team in fall 2015. But he had to put off taking to the field with the team later last year when his cancer was diagnosed.
Unexplained nausea and vomiting started that summer and had grown worse by fall, Kenton said.
“In September, at the beginning of school, every meal would get thrown up a couple of minutes later,” he said.
When he passed out after one severe episode in October, his parents took him to the Comox emergency ward, where an MRI showed three tumours.
That prompted an emergency airlift to B.C. Children’s Hospital. Surgery took place four days later, followed by a course of chemotherapy, then radiation treatments that ended in late March.
Those treatments had him going back and forth between his Vancouver Island home and the hospital on the mainland.
Last December, Kenton was at B.C. Children’s Hospital for a three-day chemo session that kept him in hospital over Christmas, when he got a surprise morale boost from Teibert, one of his idols.
“He gave me a game jersey and a pair of autographed cleats,” Kenton said. “I just got so much joy knowing that I got this present from a guy that I look up to.”
In January, Teibert followed up with a visit to Kenton in the hospital. The pro star and the up-and-comer ended up bonding over — what else — a soccer video game.
“We ended up playing FIFA and we just instantly hit it off,” Kenton said.
The two exchanged phone numbers and have kept in touch, spending an afternoon at a video arcade this past spring, and Kenton came to B.C. Place to watch Teibert play with the Whitecaps.
Teibert was at the hospital with Kenton, his parents and his older sister last May, when they got the news Kenton was cancer-free.
“I could see the joy, the relief, the excitement, the fear — and then ‘what do you do now?’ ” Teibert said. “That’s what I saw in him. I’m so happy for him that it went the way it did … I’m just happy that he wanted me to be a part of it.”
Kenton is now working to get back to full fitness. He hasn’t regained all of the weight he lost during treatment, but he’s hitting the gym and walking daily. He’s still working to regain his appetite as well.
“Whenever I’m feeling well and I have enough energy, I like to go to the gym — stationary bikes, treadmills, working on my legs, just trying to get enough muscle so I can start running again. I’m going to work as hard as I can to get back to soccer.”
Kenton and Teibert will get together again in Vancouver on Dec. 16 for a charity project.
“I’m interested to catch up with him,” Teibert said. “He texts me every now and then, I see him on Instagram.”