A 5-year-old's journey to becoming a teammate: USC Sumter Fire Ants Esports team adopts boy recovering from cancer

If you ask USC Sumter Esports Head Coach Kris Weissman, sometimes "a lot of things just click" in lending a helping hand.

Here's his team's story in the last month in building a relationship with a 5-year-old boy in recovery from leukemia.

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The Friends of Jaclyn Foundation, based in New York, has a caring mission with its adopt-a-child program that pairs children battling cancer with a high school or college sports team as an honorary team member.

According to Executive Director Erin Stimson, in its 16 years of existence, the foundation has helped 960-plus families get connected with mostly mainstream sports teams in the U.S. and Canada.

But in the fall, a request came in concerning a U.S. Air Force family based at Joint Base Charleston along the coast, 5-year-old Donald Smith, the son of Airman Josh Smith and his wife, Molly, to connect with a video-gaming team because he is into video games.

Stimson said the foundation has worked with hundreds of teams before but never one in Esports, which is competitive multiplayer video gaming.

Since the foundation tries to connect families with teams that are geographically compatible, she took to the internet and a Google search for colleges close to the Charleston area and then checked to see if schools had an official Esports team, Stimson said.

USC Sumter was the first school she came across, and she reached out directly to Weissman, the team's coach.

"We reached out and got pretty immediate positive feedback from the team," Stimson said. "They were excited, and they are the very first Esports team to be part of the Friends of Jaclyn family. So, we were excited to see how we could grow that relationship, especially now during the age of COVID-19 where so much is happening virtually. It just seemed like it was going to be a really neat match for this little kid."

THE STORY OF DONALD SMITH

Donald Smith was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia about 18 months ago, in June 2019, at the age of 3, according to his mother, Molly Smith.

Don's first love was Legos, but when he was hospitalized in the initial months of his cancer battle, he was confined to a wheelchair and lost fine motor skills. His hands became tired from his treatment, according to Smith.

Smith said the family turned to an iPad, which could entertain Don for hours on end, and it became his hobby.

"He got to a point where he couldn't even put two Lego bricks together," Smith said, "but on his iPad, he could just touch the screen and move it around and still participate in something like that."

Mom and Dad then downloaded to Don's iPad the video game Minecraft, which, like Legos, has a focus on building.

He took to it right away.

"It was like a week and he knew how to do everything," Mom said. "He could build all these portals and houses, and he could craft a sword, and he just remembers all these just amazing codes to make all these different tools in Minecraft and build all these different houses. It's really incredible for a 5-year-old."

Since October 2019, Don has been cancer-free and in remission.

He's currently in a "long-term maintenance stage," according to Smith, which allows him to live at home, take oral medications and make just one visit per month to the children's hospital for chemotherapy.

He's still technically "immunocompromised" with a low immune system that makes homeschooling required for now, and he's self-quarantined to keep away from any virus, including COVID-19, Mom said.

A friend of the Smith family in Charleston was familiar with the Friends of Jaclyn Foundation and reached out to the agency last fall about if it could find a match with the video games.

ADOPTION MEETING WITH FIRE ANTS

After the coordination between the foundation and USC Sumter's Weissman, the Fire Ants' initial adoption meeting with Don Smith was held on Zoom on Dec. 17, right after fall semester exams.

Given Don's condition, the family couldn't come to campus.

But the team of digital natives is fine with virtual meetings, which are commonplace now during the pandemic.

In the online meeting, Weissman said he and his student-athletes got to learn more about Don and meet with the Smith family.

Since then, players have chatted online with Don, and Weissman has reached out to Mom about how the team can provide help and support.

The coach said his team will likely next play some online games of Minecraft with Don.

"We will jump in there with him in some fashion on Minecraft," Weissman said.

The coach said when the foundation approached him for the first time in November on a possible match with Don, there was a great connection given the 5-year-old's interest in gaming and since it was the foundation's first reach into Esports.

Also, since Don's family is military and Sumter is an Air Force community with Shaw Air Force Base, that was another connection. Weissman said he thought it would be a good community service activity for his team.

Back in Charleston, Molly Smith said her family is appreciative of the team's kind gestures.

"Donald talks about the team as 'his gamers,' and he feels included and really special that they made him part of the team," Smith said. "It's totally something that Donald is going to do one day when he's in college. He will be on one of these teams. So, it's given him a lot of encouragement and happiness to be adopted into this program.

"We are super thankful, and we love seeing joy on his face through all of this," she added. "Any little bit helps, and we are just very thankful."