Rowe continues to help kids fighting cancer

FOXBOROUGH — Boston athletes have always been selfless when it comes to kids with cancer. Starting with the Boston Braves’ Johnny Sain and The Jimmy Fund back in 1948 to Ted Williams continuing that tradition, Hub sports legends have been synonymous with battling that dreadful disease.

You can add Revolution midfielder Kelyn Rowe to that list of urging young cancer patients to never ever give up.

Rowe has been involved with the Jessie Rees Foundation out of Irvine, Calif. since the end of the ’14 regular season, following a visit to Mass. General Hospital’s Yawkey Center.

Jessie Rees was a 12-year-old girl who fought against two brain tumors between March 2011 and January 2012, when she passed away. Her father, Eric, began the foundation soon after, with the motto Never Ever Give Up — shortened to NEGU.

There are many athletes involved in the foundation, such as Olympians Janet Evans and Jordan Wieber, along with Carson Palmer, DeMarco Murray, Matt Leinart, and Chad Henne, among others.

Rowe is the lone soccer player in Jessie’s “All-Stars.”

“I have a college buddy who worked for the foundation in and out of college,” Rowe said after Tuesday morning’s training session at Gillette Stadium. “He saw the work I did in my first year in the league and my second year in the league, and he decided to give me a call. I did one hospital visit with them, and I loved the way they ran things, I loved the way they created that little extra with the JoyJars they had, and the experiences.

“I met a kid named David who wanted to come to a soccer game. I thought, ‘Let’s bring him to a game, see what we can do to make a special event out of it.’ Luckily he was able to come out to the last home game in ’14, and after it happened, we thought we should keep doing this because it was an amazing event. David really liked it. Let’s try to do five more next year. We have it all planned out; we can plan it out during the offseason and stuff. And after ’15, after five, we can keep doing this, this is really good. This is something we should really keep doing.”

Since that first game, Rowe has hosted over 25 kids with cancer at Gillette as part of “Kelyn’s NEGU Crew.” He hosted a young lady named Abigail during the match with LA Galaxy on July 14, a young man named Joshua two weeks earlier, and a young man named Nathan on May 12.

The families involved get tickets to the match, and meet and greets with Rowe before and after the game. On his Twitter account, Rowe asks Revolution supporters to stay after the match and show their support to the kids.

“I saw the impact in the kids and the families involved, and back to myself: these events do bring you back to reality after a tough season or a happy season, no matter what it is,” Rowe said. “There’s never too many highs, never too many lows. These kids put that in perspective.

“When I first started this, I got a call from Eric Rees, the founder. He said, ‘You’re doing a great thing. I know that we don’t have the money to cure cancer, because it’s going to take a lot of time and a lot of money, but you’re doing a great job: you may not be able to cure cancer, but you can cure a bad day.’”

The foundation means so much to Rowe that during his contract negotiations two years ago, which had been deadlocked over $15,000, he admits, that he upped the ante, so to speak.

“Every player obviously wants to get as much money as they can involved in their contract, and we had hit a stalemate,” he explained. “I knew I wanted to have a little bit more money and I knew I wanted to get involved; we had already talked about getting involved more with the club and involved with the Kelyn’s NEGU Crew on the game day, and I thought let’s take another step and get Jonathan and Robert Kraft involved, as well. I said, ‘Instead of the $15,000 coming to me which we’re really debating over at the moment, which isn’t that much money, let’s do it toward charity: every year of the contract and every year that I play for the Revolution, the Kraft family donates $5,000 to the Jessie Rees Foundation.

“Negotiations are always intense between everyone involved, but this part of the negotiations was not hard whatsoever. They said, ‘Absolutely, deal done.’ The next contract I have will have that clause in it, as well.”

Rowe always tries to up his game on NEGU nights.

“You want to give these kids the night of their life,” he said. “Whether it be the actual events where you’re with them before or after the game or watching the game up top, I want them to know I’m playing for them and the whole team is playing for them. It’s great to get those wins for them and playing well, but with them in the stands, it’s like having my mom in the stands; you always want to play well for mom.

“It puts things in perspective. It gives me the sense that I may be a better person than I actually am, who knows? But it creates this family orientation and gets me involved in something bigger than soccer. I like to think it makes me a better person, and it makes me involved in so many kids’ lives that need a little bit of help.”

To donate to the foundation, click the donate button on the negu.org home page.