Atlas counting on a miracle
Philanthropist using foundation to give a dying woman hope
SI Advance, 2008-12-05
by Jay Price
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE -- Look at Teddy Atlas sweat. Look at him pace the sideline at the Jets practice facility in Florham Park, N.J., waiting to greet a weekend guest.
Funny how it works. Atlas, the ESPN boxing analyst from Todt Hill, has been a tough guy his whole life. He's got the scars to show for it, from that time the other guy brought a knife to a fist fight.
Now look at him over there, as nervous as a kid waiting to see the principal. The man who put a gun to Mike Tyson's head -- the same one who shamed Michael Moorer into winning the heavyweight championship of the world, and coaches the Jets on how to conquer their innermost doubts -- is unnerved by the prospect of meeting a blonde in a wheelchair.
Because how do you greet a 22-year-old who's been told she could be dead in a month because for a few days when she was in college -- a few days! -- she didn't take her medicine.
What do you say to somebody who's already picked out her cemetery plot, and planned her own funeral? How do you introduce yourself, wondering if you're saying hello and goodbye at the same time?
A few days!
That's the part Atlas can't get out of his head, the part that has him tied in knots as he waits to take Ann Noble Carlton to meet Brett Favre and the rest of the Jets, the start of her long weekend in the Big Apple, a place Ann Noble's always wanted to visit.
She just didn't count on it being a rush job, was all.
When she was 17, she had heart transplant surgery the summer before her senior year in high school.
Given a new lease on life, she made the most of it, graduating with honors, getting voted "Most Admired" by her classmates, going off to study at Emory University. Life was good, except for the anti-rejection medication that all transplant recipients have to take for the rest of their lives.
The medicine -- 40 pills a day -- was making her sick. When everybody else was out having fun, she was throwing up lunch, or too tired to get out of bed.
So every once in awhile -- when she was sick and tired of being sick and tired -- she didn't take her meds. And now she's dying, because her borrowed heart is failing, and her history makes her a less-than-ideal candidate for a new one.
Atlas didn't even know the full story; not at first. When the Dr. Theodore Atlas Foundation, the charity he spearheads in the name of his father, agreed to make Ann Noble's I'll-take-Manhattan wish come true, nobody told him why she was so sick. Why burden him with that, too, when there was nothing he could do?
Shows how little they knew about Atlas, who felt compelled to follow another of the foundation's beneficiaries out of a perfectly good airplane last month, just because he was invited.
When they sat down to plan her New York itinerary -- Broadway? Check. The Christmas Show at Radio City? Check. Atlas couldn't help thinking they were missing something, maybe the most important thing.
What if they could make her better? What if there was a doctor, somewhere in the big city, who could figure out a way to keep her alive? And how could they send her home without trying?
They called down to Alabama to get Ann's medical records, and that's when they heard about the times when she didn't take her medicine, the few days that have been keeping Atlas up nights.
"I understand it, in one way," he's saying now, sounding like somebody who doesn't really understand at all. "I know how valuable a heart is -- but who didn't make mistakes when we were kids?"
It's a throwaway line that has more kick coming from Atlas, who's the first one to tell you he screwed up every way there was when he was a teenager.
"I was fortunate," he says. "I survived my mistakes. A lot of things had to go just right for that to happen.
"Her mistakes were a lot more innocent. She didn't want to throw up no more. As a kid, you feel good, you think it's going to be the way you want it to be. Now she's gonna pay with her life.
"Part of me wants to go and appeal to somebody."
Some of his co-workers were concerned that by reaching out to the medical community, they might be raising false hopes. But Atlas isn't worried about that. "If we don't try," he says, "there is no hope."
So here she is, all the way from Alabama to meet the Jets, who go out of their way to disprove any of the nasty things that have been said about professional athletes lately. "C'mon let's get a picture," Favre's saying a few minutes after each of his teammates stop to wish Ann Noble luck. A few stop back to say they've already called home, asking their church groups to pray for her.
Then it's off to the Great White Way, lunch with Chris Noth, "Mr. Big" of "Sex and the City," and a tour of the city, with a stopover to see the doctors at Mount Sinai.
One tough guy's shot at a Christmas miracle, nothing less than that.
Like he says, it's that time of year.
Link: http://www.silive.com/siadvance/stories/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1228482916179750.xml&coll=1
Philanthropist using foundation to give a dying woman hope
SI Advance, 2008-12-05
by Jay Price
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE -- Look at Teddy Atlas sweat. Look at him pace the sideline at the Jets practice facility in Florham Park, N.J., waiting to greet a weekend guest.
Funny how it works. Atlas, the ESPN boxing analyst from Todt Hill, has been a tough guy his whole life. He's got the scars to show for it, from that time the other guy brought a knife to a fist fight.
Now look at him over there, as nervous as a kid waiting to see the principal. The man who put a gun to Mike Tyson's head -- the same one who shamed Michael Moorer into winning the heavyweight championship of the world, and coaches the Jets on how to conquer their innermost doubts -- is unnerved by the prospect of meeting a blonde in a wheelchair.
Because how do you greet a 22-year-old who's been told she could be dead in a month because for a few days when she was in college -- a few days! -- she didn't take her medicine.
What do you say to somebody who's already picked out her cemetery plot, and planned her own funeral? How do you introduce yourself, wondering if you're saying hello and goodbye at the same time?
A few days!
That's the part Atlas can't get out of his head, the part that has him tied in knots as he waits to take Ann Noble Carlton to meet Brett Favre and the rest of the Jets, the start of her long weekend in the Big Apple, a place Ann Noble's always wanted to visit.
She just didn't count on it being a rush job, was all.
When she was 17, she had heart transplant surgery the summer before her senior year in high school.
Given a new lease on life, she made the most of it, graduating with honors, getting voted "Most Admired" by her classmates, going off to study at Emory University. Life was good, except for the anti-rejection medication that all transplant recipients have to take for the rest of their lives.
The medicine -- 40 pills a day -- was making her sick. When everybody else was out having fun, she was throwing up lunch, or too tired to get out of bed.
So every once in awhile -- when she was sick and tired of being sick and tired -- she didn't take her meds. And now she's dying, because her borrowed heart is failing, and her history makes her a less-than-ideal candidate for a new one.
Atlas didn't even know the full story; not at first. When the Dr. Theodore Atlas Foundation, the charity he spearheads in the name of his father, agreed to make Ann Noble's I'll-take-Manhattan wish come true, nobody told him why she was so sick. Why burden him with that, too, when there was nothing he could do?
Shows how little they knew about Atlas, who felt compelled to follow another of the foundation's beneficiaries out of a perfectly good airplane last month, just because he was invited.
When they sat down to plan her New York itinerary -- Broadway? Check. The Christmas Show at Radio City? Check. Atlas couldn't help thinking they were missing something, maybe the most important thing.
What if they could make her better? What if there was a doctor, somewhere in the big city, who could figure out a way to keep her alive? And how could they send her home without trying?
They called down to Alabama to get Ann's medical records, and that's when they heard about the times when she didn't take her medicine, the few days that have been keeping Atlas up nights.
"I understand it, in one way," he's saying now, sounding like somebody who doesn't really understand at all. "I know how valuable a heart is -- but who didn't make mistakes when we were kids?"
It's a throwaway line that has more kick coming from Atlas, who's the first one to tell you he screwed up every way there was when he was a teenager.
"I was fortunate," he says. "I survived my mistakes. A lot of things had to go just right for that to happen.
"Her mistakes were a lot more innocent. She didn't want to throw up no more. As a kid, you feel good, you think it's going to be the way you want it to be. Now she's gonna pay with her life.
"Part of me wants to go and appeal to somebody."
Some of his co-workers were concerned that by reaching out to the medical community, they might be raising false hopes. But Atlas isn't worried about that. "If we don't try," he says, "there is no hope."
So here she is, all the way from Alabama to meet the Jets, who go out of their way to disprove any of the nasty things that have been said about professional athletes lately. "C'mon let's get a picture," Favre's saying a few minutes after each of his teammates stop to wish Ann Noble luck. A few stop back to say they've already called home, asking their church groups to pray for her.
Then it's off to the Great White Way, lunch with Chris Noth, "Mr. Big" of "Sex and the City," and a tour of the city, with a stopover to see the doctors at Mount Sinai.
One tough guy's shot at a Christmas miracle, nothing less than that.
Like he says, it's that time of year.
Link: http://www.silive.com/siadvance/stories/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1228482916179750.xml&coll=1
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