Earlier this month, we all got a little goose-bumpy over the story of 12-year old Grant Reed, who recently underwent his final chemotherapy treatment for brain cancer. Adding some humor to his otherwise inspirational story was the fact that the son of two Ohio State alums nicknamed his tumor “Michigan” so that when he finally beat cancer, he could also tell people that he beat Michigan. It’s a harmless, heartwarming story that should make people who take their own sports rivalries way too seriously think twice the next time they want to break a person’s bones for the logo on his.
And Michigan Wolverines coach Brady Hoke agrees with me, because he has already reached out to Grant and his family to offer them four tickets to this year’s big rivalry game in Ann Arbor, and the Reed family has graciously accepted.
“There was no way we could have pulled off getting tickets otherwise,” Troy said of Hoke’s invitation.
According to the TV report, the Rotary Club of Jackson, Mich., has offered to pay for the Reed’s hotel.
“It’s getting hard to keep my dislike for them, because they’ve been so classy and unbelievable to us,” said Troy, a former member of the Buckeyes’ marching band. “But it won’t be hard to cheer for the Buckeyes.” (Via ESPN)
It’s just so nice and relieving to have a story like this. In fact, I think we should all make a deal that we’ll just leave it as is and not going snooping around into the Reed family’s background. We don’t need to find out that Grants parents didn’t actually graduate from Ohio State or that they have a crazy uncle that’s been locked up for a decade for selling pig organs as if they were human.
Let’s just enjoy this for what it is and keep these smiles for a few more months. What say you, crazy Ohio State trombone guy?
Excellent.
