CDT - "Lift for Life All Routine at PSU"

UNIVERSITY PARK —  Scott Shirley spends much of his time on the road. If the former Penn State wide receiver and founder of Uplifting Athletes isn’t at a university trying to help launch another chapter of the non-profit organization that fights rare diseases with the popularity of college football, chances are he’s on the phone with members of an already existing chapter.

Why? Because the leadership group at Penn State gets larger and more efficient by the year.

“It’s been a blessing,” Shirley said. “To have an event and a chapter that’s been successful that doesn’t really require a lot of our attention is ideal. Really, all we’ve done is teach them how to fish and now they’re feeding themselves.”

Shirley and former teammates Damone Jones and Dave Costlow were the lone organizers in 2003, when the event was held in the team’s weight room and not open to the public. When they moved it to Holuba the following summer, the group included about seven players or volunteers.

Today, three years after Uplifting Athletes launched, 25 Nittany Lions are involved in the chapter and work year-round to organize LFL and other fundraising events. Each year, as on Friday, about two dozen teams of four participate in the weightlifting challenge, but never have so many players been a part of the behind-the-scenes work.

“It’s word of mouth,” Deloris Brobeck said. “They’ve seen it grow and want to get involved in it. When the younger guys come in the first thing they say is ‘What can we do?’”

Brobeck, an administrative assistant for Penn State’s academic counselors who doubles as essentially the only non-player in the chapter’s leadership, has seen the Nittany Lions, led by current chapter president Brett Brackett, refine the organization, marketing and networking of the group while building a strong foundation for the chapter’s future.

Brackett ironically was on Friday’s winning team, Oh-Jersey, with teammates Michael Zordich, Gerald Hodges and Jack Crawford.

As of Friday afternoon, 84 different Nittany Lions had individually raised funds, with seven of them raising more than $1,000. Total funds were estimated at over $85,000, bringing the eight-year total to more than $485,000.

“They’ve done a good job creating really a system where guys can get involved in different ways,” Shirley said. “The second year that we did it, there were eight or nine guys, all sitting around a table, saying ‘Who wants to do what?’ Now, (Brackett) has guys that have assumed areas of responsibility, and that guy has guys that he’s working with to help him on it.”

Penn State has become the model Shirley can point to when he works with student leaders and teams around the country to set up similar Uplifting Athletes chapters. Last month, two leaders from each of the five chapters — Penn State, Ohio State, Colgate, Maryland and Boston College — met at Uplifting Athletes’ headquarters in Camp Hill for a week-long planning session. Ideas were shared on how to improve the operations of five groups at five very different stages of development.

Shirley said he expects chapters at Northwestern and Kent State to be up and running within the next few weeks and estimates that there could be 10-15 Uplifting Athletes chapters by this time next year.

“Emphasis is put on the growth over time,” Shirley said. “There’s no shame in starting the way we did with just family and friends, get your feet under you before you’re trying to do what they did at Penn State.”

The Boston College chapter battles Ewing’s Sarcoma, the cancer that temporarily knocked linebacker Mark Herzlich off the field (he’ll return this fall). Ohio State’s chapter fights Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, the neurological disorder that afflicts Craig Pryor, the father of Buckeyes quarterback Terrelle Pryor.

And Penn State, just as it always has, battles kidney cancer. During the initial Lift For Life, the fathers of four Nittany Lions — Shirley, Josh Hannum, Darien Hardy and Robert Price — were battling the disease. Shirley, who lost his father, Don, to kidney cancer in 2005, said there’s no reason why Penn State’s chapter couldn’t select another rare disease to raise awareness of and funds for.

“It’s their choice,” Shirley said. “And as long as it’s their choice, if they want to stick with it, that’s great. I don’t ever want to be in a position where I’m encouraging them to do something they don’t necessarily believe in.”

But though Shirley says that half the current roster might not even know his story, it is one that resonates with the Nittany Lions.

“I see this being the rare disease we benefit for a while,” said vice president Mike Farrell, an offensive lineman. “It’s kind of the reason that this whole thing was started.”

Brobeck was there from the start, helping to fill in the cracks, make sure the deadlines are met and act as a mentor.

“We couldn’t do this without her,” Farrell said.

But, like Shirley, Brobeck hears fewer questions each year. If the Nittany Lions don’t have Lift For Life down to a science, they’re getting close.

“They’re very proud of this program,” Brobeck said.