Ducks Spread Good Will

Here's a great story printed in Christmas Day's Register Guard. It's good to see Kelly coaching this kind of "spread" in life lessons.

With typical efficiency, Chip Kelly, Ducks spread lasting cheer

By George Schroeder
The Register-Guard
Published: Saturday, Dec 25, 2010 05:02AM

They are Duck fans. Let’s start there. And although they have deep connections to Eugene, there means Stockton, Calif.

So when the gift arrived from Oregon, they were surprised. Then they opened it.

A T-shirt. Some scrawled signatures. “We were flabbergasted,” Jill Perrapato says.

“It was awesome,” says her 13-year-old son Joey.

What did it mean?

First, back up.

It’s Christmas. We’re gathering with loved ones, giving and receiving. Around here, Duck gear figures to be among the hottest presents. Maybe, if you’ve been really good, Santa brought tickets to the biggest game in Oregon’s history.

But today, let’s focus on small gestures that, when unwrapped, blossom into huge gifts. Let’s note how Oregon football is lifting spirits with more than touchdowns and wins.

Let’s highlight deliberate acts of kindness like the visit Walter Thurmond III and Patrick Chung made to Newberg two years ago to visit a dying teenager. They spent almost an hour with Andrew Meinert. Held his hand. Told him to keep fighting against the aggressive brain cancer.

Andrew lost that fight not long afterward. But a grateful family cannot forget how two Ducks brightened a very dark situation.

“They touched us so much,” says Matt Meinert, Andrew’s big brother. “It meant a lot to the family. It really helped us get through that time when there wasn’t a whole lot we were looking forward to.”

Last month, Chip Kelly and a few players and coaches visited Charles Cummings and other disabled residents of the Independent Environments group home. Charles showed off his Duck room, complete with photos taken earlier of him with the coach.

It was an hour of elation. No, more like ecstasy. And if you dropped by today?

“Charles is still riding high,” says Fred Renter, the group home’s executive director. “The Ducks really generated some lasting joy.”

A week ago, 21 kids from two local elementary schools gathered at Target on the west side of town. After pizza and soda, they were handed $100 bills and told to buy gifts for their families, and helped on the shopping sprees by Oregon football players.

Kelly, by the way, wrote a check to cover the costs. A year ago, the Ducks sponsored 10 kids. Next year, the goal is 118 — a kid for every player.

To capture the moment, you needed only to watch one little boy running around the store, wildly waving that Benjamin Franklin. And to see two giant football players in Santa hats following him everywhere.

To understand the impact, you needed to hear one mother, when the school called to tell her of the opportunity, who began crying and explained she’d just spent the family’s Christmas money on an emergency.

“Pretty amazing,” says Denisa Taylor, the principal at Cesar Chavez Elementary. “It was good for the Ducks and good for the kids.”

Yeah, good for the Ducks. When they see how their presence, and their presents, can generate lasting joy — “It’s almost like having a superpower,” says James Harris.

Harris is the assistant athletic director who, among other things, coordinates “O Heroes.” (While we’re on the subject, if you’re looking for an O hero, start with Harris.)

Harris says the program is teaching Oregon’s athletes how, with a small investment of time or energy, they can “change people’s lives” — or at the very least, positively affect them.

Sometimes, all it takes is a few seconds. A signature and a stamp.

Which brings us back to a 13-year-old fan from California’s Central Valley. Joey Perrapato has always been a Duck fan in a family of them.

David and Jill, his parents, are from Eugene. They have family here, and they’ve visited often through the years.

An uncle played for Oregon, back in the 1960s. Joey has loved the Ducks since before he knew what they were. There’s an “O” in their front yard, and Joey has a running battle with Mr. Brunn, his history teacher, who’s an Ohio State fan.

But except for Saturday afternoons watching football, it has been a rough fall.

Joey’s father, David, has been out of work. A pressman for the San Francisco Chronicle, he lost his job when the printing plant was sold to another company.

And a few months back, bothered by persistent pain in his left leg, Joey went to the doctor. He expected a pulled muscle. His mom thought he might miss a week of P.E.

They discovered a tumor in Joey’s thighbone. He underwent surgery and missed most of the fall semester. He’s only just now off crutches.

And even as he healed, the family waited anxiously for lab results. Was the tumor a rare bone cancer? Or was the second diagnosis correct, that it was benign?

Into this situation, Dewitt Stuckey sent a T-shirt.

Oregon’s reserve linebacker is from Stockton, but the Perrapatos have never met him. He knew only that “there’s a kid in Stockton,” Jill says, “with a tumor in his leg.”

One of Jill’s friends from work knew the Perrapatos were Ducks. And that Joey was headed for surgery. And also, the friend knew Stuckey.

A few days before Joey’s surgery, the friend dropped a bag on Jill’s desk. For Joey, from the Ducks.

He opened it a day after surgery. The T-shirt was signed by, well, they think it might have been every Duck.

And it is hard to describe what those autographs meant.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Joey says. “They don’t even know me!”

Understand, players regularly sign items at Harris’ request. Recently, as a result of a project started by LaMichael James, they shipped a half-dozen autographed footballs to Medford, where they were given to kids fighting cancer.

Photographs came back, cute little bald kids beaming as they held their new prize.

“It was an awesome deal,” Harris says.

Which, you’ll remember, is exactly what Joey thought about all those signatures on a piece of green cloth.

Do the Ducks know how they encouraged a kid in Stockton with a tumor in his leg? Joey’s mom wants to make sure they do, and to thank them for lifting the spirits of a family facing all sorts of fear.

"It really is spectacular,” Jill says. “Just that they could — in this season, of all seasons, when they’ve got so much going on — that they could take a minute to do that.

“They might see it as a small thing. But it was a tremendous thing for our family.”

As was the news Thursday afternoon, when the lab results finally came back:

All clear.

“We’ve got a healthy son!” Jill says, and she wants to share the good news with everyone.

They’re grateful for the very good news. And even a month later, they’re glowing over a small gift that meant so much.

Joey cannot wait to return to school. He’ll wear the T-shirt to history class, because “this is gonna kill Mr. Brunn.” Is there any doubt what it did for Joey?

“If it’s possible,” he says, “I now love the Ducks even more.”

E-mail george.schroeder@registerguard.com. Follow at twitter.com/GeorgeSchroeder

That's really awesome. Hope all of you are enjoying the holidays.

--KB