When Jacob Reece, who had just completed treatment for a life-threatening bout with B-Cell Lymphoma, told a Wish with Wings his dream, it was very simple and very challenging. He wanted to attend the 2014 World Series. Baseball is important to Jacob, and one of the frustrations that came with the illness was that he couldn't continue to play.
"He was amazing," says Kristina Reece, his mother. "He was playing baseball three days before he was in the hospital with a tumor the size of a volleyball in his chest. He's an amazingly tough kid. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't eat, he couldn't do anything, but he was still going to play baseball."
Football is important to the youth on the Longhorns, a YMCA of Metropolitan Fort Worth youth tackle football league team. But so is community service. Their Longhorns Give Back project is a couple of years old now. They've volunteered for the Communities in Schools/Tarrant Area Food Bank "Weekend Backpack" program. And they raised what Coach John Brookman, a local lawyer, described as "mountains of money and food" for Thanksgiving meals through WestAid.
There's some adult involvement, of course, but the effort is primarily boy led. And when the older boys on the team reported back with options for 2014, the kids picked the harder challenge. They picked a Wish with Wings, a Fort Worth-based non-profit that grants wishes for children with life-threatening diseases, and Jacob Reece.
"When I discovered they chose to fulfill Jacob's wish to attend the World Series with his family, I was shocked, then panicked," he said. The Series was just four weeks away, and he worried that Jacob would be crushed if they tried and failed. He wondered whether he should protect the team from setting impossible goals. "But I am committed to this being their deal," he said. "So I let it ride."
And the team went to work. "They persuaded their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends to sponsor them in games," he said. A defensive tackle talked an oilman into donating based on the number of quarterback sacks and tackles he made in the backfield. Then, said Brookman, he "proceeded to go on a spree of defensive mayhem unseen before in our league. A running back struck a deal with relatives to contribute based on his rushing yards - and then went about setting the league record for yards gained from scrimmage."
Word spread. An executive of a local foundation met with team leaders and donated $5,000 anonymously for airfare. An anonymous Texas Rangers board member obtained tickets for Games 3, 4 and 5. But it was the $9,446 the boys raised that closed the deal for the balance of the airfare, three nights in a San Francisco hotel, ground transportation and other expenses.
"So, to say I am proud of them does not do it justice," Brookman said.
The team invited Jacob to a practice session to make the presentation. They gave him a Longhorn jersey and welcomed him into their ranks. And what does Jacob say about the Longhorns and the experience? "Thank you. It was awesome. Grateful, honored." He is, after all, a 13-year-old boy.
He says he's not sure how to describe his experience with his illness. "I'm over it now," he says. And he's quick to point out that he only missed one season of baseball.
He didn't have a favorite in the Series but was partial to San Francisco since that is where he and his family saw the games. A thrill was "getting to watch that Game 5 where [Madison] Bumgarner had that complete game shutout," he said. Jacob's advice to other children facing life-threatening diseases? "Just keep fighting." Like the Giants. Like the Longhorns. Like Jacob Reece.
