UNLV coaches, players try to brighten holidays for hospitalized children — VIDEO
This is a Christmas story that has nothing to do with the one that will be shown on TBS on a continuous loop Friday. It’s not about Ralphie and a Red Ryder BB gun, or the Scut Farkas kid with the yellow eyes, or Ralphie’s little brother who fell in the snow and couldn’t get up because he was wearing too many winter clothes.
This Christmas story is about UNLV coaches with soft spots in their hearts, and a Rebels basketball player who is much better beyond the 3-point stripe than he is with a Mexican yo-yo, and sick kids in the hospital, and the local sports radio talk host who brings them all together each year when the thermometer drops to around 50.
It starts as it always starts: Everybody meets in the lobby of Sunrise Children’s Hospital on Maryland Parkway, and a man from the hospital’s community relations department thanks everybody for coming. Then he advises against asking the kids how they’re doing.
Because whereas some are doing well, some are not.
Some may be going home tomorrow, the man from the hospital says. Some may not. Some may not be going home for Christmas. Some may never go home. The man from the hospital doesn’t mention the last part, but the inference is clear.
UNLV football coach Tony Sanchez and a handful of his players are paying rapt and solemn attention to the man from the hospital, as are Rebels basketball coach Dave Rice and some of his players. Rice has a busy schedule this time of year. He wasn’t expected to make it to the hospital this time.
But Rice made it. Rice always makes it. He came through the sliding automatic doors just before the man from the hospital began to speak.
Elevators were taken to the third floor. Surgical masks were distributed. A lot of the sick kids are susceptible to flu bugs, and other bugs, in their weakened states.
Some of the kids who were feeling up to it/not hooked up to machines were brought down to a play area where a man from Arizona with a yo-yo entertained them.
A boy named Ahmad came down. He was wearing a stocking cap, and he was precocious and outgoing. He challenged Ike Nwamu, the Rebels’ 3-point specialist, to a Mexican yo-yo duel. First to flip the little ball into the cup three times wins. Ahmad won. It wasn’t close.
Down the hall, Kyle Saxelid of the football team was on all fours racing a tricycle-riding tyke around the nurses station. It appeared Saxelid was having more fun than the little guy on the bike. Well, maybe it was a tie.
Sanchez and Rice put on surgical masks and gowns. Somebody said if they called the man with the yo-yo, who had frizzy hair, and put a mask and gown on him, it would look like that one “Three Stooges” episode.
It helps to have a sense of humor before you go into the darkened rooms. These are the kids who do not feel well enough to play with Mexican yo-yos, or race a tricycle around the nurses station with offensive linemen. These are the kids who probably won’t be going home for Christmas.
“Sometimes we get so driven trying to help these superior athletes build toward championships and such that we kind of forget how blessed we truly are,” Sanchez said. “So during the holiday season, or really any season, to come into a hospital like this and spend some time with some children who are battling some tough situations, it’s really humbling.”
Back down the hall, Ahmad and Nwamu still were playing with Mexican yo-yos. Nwamu seemed to be making a comeback. Ken Thomson of Sports X Radio said he had made halftime adjustments.
Thomson is the guy who brings the coaches and ballplayers and the sick kids together each year. He brings gifts and gift cards with money inside and kid-sized footballs and basketballs that sometimes are less than fully inflated. So he brings air pumps and little inflation needles and tells you to get to work.
“Every single year, the participation is simply overwhelming,” Thomson said. “The (UNLV) athletic department, coaches and players … they get as big a kick out of it as the kids do seeing the players.”
This was outside the playroom. Inside, there arose a clatter: Ike Nwamu had finally beaten Ahmad in Mexican yo-yo. When Ahmad returned to his room, there were drops of blood on the hospital floor.
His mom said her little guy was having so much fun that he pulled the IV right out of his arm.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski