Tennessee Vols Fans Stand Up For a Little Boy With a Rare Disease

Sometimes college football brings out the best in people, even off the field.

On Saturday (Dec. 21), the Ohio State Buckeyes hosted the Tennessee Volunteers in a first round matchup of the college football playoffs, marking only the second time ever that these two teams have met. As fans across the college football world watch the first-ever round of playoff games at home stadiums, fan excitement is at an all-time high for these schools.

But even with all that enthusiasm for the Buckeyes and Volunteers, real life — with all its highs and lows — keeps rolling.

That was true when Buckeye fan Brutus Stark, aka X username @iron_brutus, posted a heart-wrenching update on his son Clark, who has recently been diagnosed with a rare condition called Sanfilippo syndrome.

• According to the Cleveland Clinic, Sanfilippo syndrome is “a group of inherited (genetic) lysosomal storage disorders that mainly affect your child’s central nervous system (brain and spinal cord.)”
• The disease causes cognitive, behavioral and physical symptoms such as differences in head and facial features, sleep disturbances, intellectual disability and respiratory problems.
• There is no cure for Sanfilippo syndrome.
• It is rare. Researchers estimate that 1 in every 50,000-250,000 will be diagnosed with some form of Sanfilippo syndrome.
• It is a fatal condition, with a life expectancy of between 11-32 years depending on which type of the condition a child is facing.

“I will be taking time away from here to grieve this but just wanted to say thank you to all who I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with here over our shared love of college football and our Buckeyes,” Stark wrote.

“Once we’ve had time to grieve and process this I’m sure I’ll be back,” he added, “because if there’s one thing my son loves it’s Buckeye football. Go Bucks.”

Ask any parent, there is nothing worse in life than getting bad news about your child. But that’s the thing about life: When bad things happen, it gives good people a chance to do something good.

That is when X user @BoCamaro stepped in. He put out the call to his fellow Vols fans, along with Volunteer charity fan group @BeyondTheSnap, to try and raise some money to send Brutus Stark and his son Clark to the playoff game. And the call was answered.

The money started to roll in. Not only has enough money been raised to get Clark some extra care the family could not afford, but also any extra money not used by the family will go towards buying Christmas gifts for kids that are battling cancer this Christmas in Columbus area hospitals.

A great reminder this time of year that there are good people out there. You’ve just got to look for them sometimes. After all, they don’t call Tennessee the Volunteer State for nothing.

Wood is host of the Taste of Country Mornings With Wood and Nicole, which can be heard every morning from 6-10AM CT on the Taste of Country app, on local affiliates where available and online at tasteofcountry.com.