Pint-size survivors

By Adam Thompson
Staff Reporter
adam.thompson@rockdalecitizen.com

CONYERS — Call it a “dream team” if you want — it rhymes and it’s certainly appropriate — but Paige Kersh has a more apt word in mind to describe the youngest pairing for his family’s Take a Club to Cancer golf tournament.

“It was just a miracle that both of them are cured of this right now,” Kersh said Wednesday.
He was speaking about his 8-year-old daughter, Kylie, and 4-year-old Kyle Lograsso, two young cancer survivors who competed together on one of 28 teams in Friday’s benefit.

Kylie’s against-all-odds recovery six years ago from neuroblastoma was an inspiration for the two-year-old fundraiser. And Kyle is a survivor of another rare form of the disease, retinoblastoma, which he had in both eyes and resulted in the removal of his left eye.
The way Kylie, a sports-crazed Honey Creek elementary-schooler, and Kyle, a pint-sized golf prodigy from Pennsylvania, joined together is another unlikely story.

It begins less than a month before the tournament with an article in the May issue of Golf Digest. Kersh, an avid golfer and a subscriber to the magazine, was thumbing through and found an article recounting Kyle’s amazing story.

The article, by former Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Dave Kindred, was framed by the boy’s boundless passion for golf, and it rang true with Kersh on a number of levels.
“It just captured me because some of the things that were quoted in the article about miracles and (the family saying), ‘This was never going to happen to me,’ — it just took me back to six years ago when we were going through the same thing,” he said.

It was the photo of Kyle — crouched with iron in hand and dressed just like his idol, Tiger Woods — that first drew Kersh in. Then the title made him read on: “Courage of a Tiger.”
“I just thought, what a perfect fit this would be if I could get in touch with this family and find a way for these people to make it down here and give them a weekend for them to just play golf and relax,” he said.

The similarities of the children’s stories — right down to their names — and the coincidence of the approaching golf tournament were too much to let that thought roll off; Kersh got in touch with the Lograssos through Kindred and invited them for the weekend.

The Lograssos, Jeff, Regina and their three children, are a Marine family stationed near Philadelphia and getting ready for another move.
They thanked Kersh and told him they would love to take some time off in Georgia, but financing a trip on such short notice did not seem possible.
It was a familiar situation for both families — a seemingly insurmountable circumstance standing in the way of something good.
As before, it would not stop them now.

Less than 12 hours later and after one phone call to the Kershes’ church, Ebenezer United Methodist, the Lograssos’ visit was in the bag.
“I got home that night and I had, like, 40 e-mails from people in my church who donated frequent flyer miles, and we had it resolved,” Kersh said.

The Lograssos’ connection with Paige, Heather and Kylie Kersh was immediate, Jeff Lograsso said on Wednesday, the day before they arrived.
“Now when we talk, it’s like we’ve known each other forever,” he said. He even suggested that follow-up questions could be directed to Kersh — “he knows our whole life story, so he’s good at answering everything.”
“We weren’t going to be able to go, but through the kindness of everybody down there in Georgia. It was amazing what they were able to do,” he said.

Kyle, he said, expressed it in simpler terms. “He says he’s going to Georgia to raise money for cancer. He’s excited to meet Kylie. If it involves playing golf, he’s always happy.”

In the weeks leading up to the event, which raised $9,000 for the American Cancer Society last year, the response from the Conyers community has “exploded,” Kersh said.

On Friday, the two families met on the links under a clear sky, joined by a host of others working to fight a disease that affects so many.
The Kershes plan to continue the tournament every year, and the Lograssos, who are hoping for a transfer to North Carolina, may even be in a position to join them.

“We’ve talked about doing this every year now,” Kersh said.