St. Jude’s patient Misheel (c) with her mother (l) Undra Dash-Tsengel and the widow of legendary TV sportscaster Pat Summerall, Cherilyn Burns.
Photo: Shara T. Taylor
By Shara Taylor
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is blossoming ahead of spring thanks to a recent night of philanthropy in San Francisco prior to Super Bowl LX.
During Black History Month, it is noteworthy that the institution touts being the first fully integrated children’s hospital in the Southern United States and this month they have recognized their “Black heroes,” stories of patients who triumphed in their lives. Donations made treatment possible for these heroes, and the Legends for Charity Dinner, an annual dinner and red-carpet affair held during the week of NFL Super Bowl festivities, helped fund the efforts aimed to make life easier for them and other children.
“Any time we can honor St. Jude I’m glad to be here,” said Tony Thomas, son of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital founder Danny Thomas. “I love football obviously so it’s great to see the personalities.”
ESPN/ABC sportscaster Kirk Herbstreit and Tony Thomas, son of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital founder Danny Thomas.
Photo: Shara T. Taylor
Proceeds from the event help support the hospital’s mission to defeat childhood cancer and life-threatening diseases and focus on advancing cures while ensuring no family ever receives a bill for treatment. The purpose of the dinner is to raise these necessary funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, but also to celebrate national sports legends. Along with the dinner, a selected sports broadcaster is honored each year and presented with the Pat Summerall Award. The award was named after the former NFL placekicker and television sportscaster, who died in 2013 and was known for his NFL play-by-play announcing and his work on CBS, Fox, and ESPN.
“We realize that people are just good and they want to give and support, so we hooked up with St. Jude, and it has been nothing but honor.” said Summerall’s wife, Cherilyn Burns. “Pat, he would be blown away. This is our 21st year, and how exciting!”
The idea started by Cheryl DeLeonardis, president of Ocean 2 Ocean Productions, who selected Summerall as an honoree for the Legends for Charity Luncheon held during the week of Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville.
“I met Pat Summerall and I honored him in Jacksonville in 2005, and the turnout was amazing, and afterwards I asked him if I could name the award in his name to raise money for charity and honor a broadcaster,” DeLeonardis said. “Here we are 21 years later, and over 14 million dollars.”
Since then, Legends for Charity has raised more than $14 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
This year the dinner honored sports broadcaster and former college football player, Kirk Herbstreit (ESPN/ABC/Amazon Prime Video), well-known for his college football commentary.
“New England Patriots linebacker Darius Harris and wife Jassi Harris co-star of the TV reality show, “The Real Housewives of Potomac.”
Photo: Shara T. Taylor
All the reasons for the award, if you looked it up under his name, he’d have every one of the qualities that we love and adore,” Burns said.
Herbstreit is known as a five-time Sports Emmy Award winner as Best Analyst for his work. He donated $100,000 during a bidding event during the dinner.
“Very, very humbling, very surreal,” Herbstreit said about receiving the award. “I grew up watching Pat my whole life and to be able to have an opportunity to recognize him tonight and all he did for this industry for guys like me, I think it’s important to realize. As far as me individually, I’m not great with individual attention, but for this night, this celebration, like I said, it’s humbling and an incredible honor that I’ve been able to receive.”
One little girl also graced the red carpet.
“I’m excited that we’re going to be able to help St. Jude and all the other kids,” said 13-year-old Misheel, a patient from the hospital. “They mean everything to me. They treated me, and I love St. Jude.”
Her mother joined her for the occasion.
“Every time I think about St. Jude, it makes me feel like…cry, but happy tears,” said her mother, Undra Dash-Tsengel. “It means the world to us. I have only one daughter, and St. Jude and its donors, staff, doctors, nurses [helped] me to keep believing in miracles, and because of them we are here today, enjoying the night.”
Tony Thomas said his father intended to start the hospital to serve the cross-cultural needs of the south when it opened in Memphis in 1962.
“He wanted to put it in the south, because he heard that children were turned away for race and religion, so he put the hospital in the south for that reason,” Thomas said. “Then he talked to scientists, and scientists said, ‘Let’s not make it a hospital — let’s make it a research center,’ and so he said, ‘Okay, we’ll do that, so no child is turned away for any reason, and all families do not have to pay for travel, treatment, food or housing.”
The event raised $1.7 million. Learn more about St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital at: http://www.stjude.org.
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