FORGED 50 YEARS AGO, A SPECIAL CONNECTION ENDURES
FLASH BACK TO DECEMBER 1974. The top college football players in the country were visiting the Shriners Children’s hospital in San Francisco prior to the 50th edition of the East-West Shrine Bowl, which was being held at nearby Stanford University.
Big hulking football players and a scrum of media personnel had crowded into the hospital room where 2-year-old Nicole was in bed, recovering from a hand surgery the day before. Overwhelmed, she began to cry.
Mike Esposito, a 6-foot-1-inch, 190-pound running back from Boston College, admits he was a bit flummoxed by the little girl’s tears. But his wife, Lee, suggested getting the girl out of there and away from the commotion.
Everyone in Shrinedom knows what happened next.
Mike took little Nicole’s hand and they headed down the hallway, away from the crush of strangers. It worked — Nicole was comforted.
A newspaper photographer snapped a picture, the tall athlete leaning down to reach the small girl’s hand, the long hallway stretching into the distance.
Nicole “was happy as we walked out,” Mike told a college sports podcast recently. “She was very happy to get out of bed and walk. And it’s all because of my wife.”
Fifty years later, Mike and Nicole were at AT&T Stadium, in Arlington Texas, for the 100th East-West Shrine Bowl, reuniting in celebration of Shriners Children’s healthcare system, the game’s big anniversary and that special moment they shared.
That 1974 photograph of Mike and Nicole became the East-West Shrine Bowl logo, painted on the 50-yard-line of the games since, rendering the essence of what the fraternity and its philanthropy are all about.
Mike likes to joke that the photograph, which was taken from behind, made his “keister” famous. In all seriousness, he said, what he most was looking forward to at this year’s East-West Shrine Bowl was seeing Nicole, whom he had not seen since a previous reunion at the 1988 game.
Nicole grew up to be a special education teacher. She works for the school district in Stockton, California, with children who are designated “medically fragile,” most of whom are patients at Shriners Children’s Northern California.
Nicole has three children, and her son, Collin, 27, was born with the same condition that brought her to Shriners Children’s: Holt-Oran syndrome, a rare genetic condition that affects the bones of the hand.
Collin had procedures at Shriners Children’s Northern California too. His mother’s two doctors were still there and so was one of her favorite nurses, who met her as she walked in through the front door. “They used to call me Coco. So, when I walked into the hospital with my son, she recognized me and ran right up and said, ‘Coco!’ I said, ‘I haven’t been called that in a very long time.’”
“I was surprised that most of the staff was still there and remembered who I was. I think that’s what separates Shriners Children’s from everybody else; instead of treating you as a patient, they treat you as part of their family.”
Nicole said her surgeries at Shriners Children’s, which gave her useable thumbs, are a gift she can never repay. “I owe all my independence to Shriners Children’s.”
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