It's easy for us to get swept away in competition or to focus on our own obstacles. But, the most memorable moments, snapshots even, capture the time we spend remembering what is truly important. And TCU senior, starting quarterback Trevone Boykin showed us what that looks like.
Boykin proved on Oct. 17 at the Iowa State game in Ames, Iowa, how powerful one of these moments can be and the impact it can make on the greater community. Before the Horned Frogs took on the Cyclones that night, the team captains gathered for the coin toss. While Boykin walked across the field, he stopped, crouched down next to 7-year-old Abby Faber and asked, “What's your name?”
Abby was the Blank Children's Hospital in Des Moines’ “Kid Captain” for the week. She was diagnosed at a young age with spastic diplegia cerebral palsy – a type of cerebral palsy that causes stiffness in the lower parts of her body, which mostly affects her legs.
And there was a Star-Telegram photographer out there to capture this precious moment. Paul Moseley told the Star-Telegram that he saw Boykin moving toward Abby so he moved in really close and got ready to snap a picture “with a fisheye lens to get the stadium and the other players.”
“I was really touched,” Moseley said.
And just like that, the picture went viral sharing this intimate exchange with the rest of the world. Boykin later shared the photo on his Instagram account writing, “It’s bigger than a game. I love touching young people’s lives.” The picture was later posted by ESPN SportsCenter’s Instagram page where it was seen by thousands of social media users.
Along with the photo hype, TCU fans found Abby's YouCaring site used to fundraise for a previous surgery Abby underwent. TCU fans, and fans of the photograph, wanted support Abby's journey so they asked the page's admin to reactivate her page. Although the old fundraiser could not be reactivated, the admin made a new page that was then shared with the TCU community. And over the past several days that YouCaring page has raised $30,480, much higher than the original goal set at $25,000, and has been shared approximately 6,300 times.
Sometimes we just have to stop and remember how important it is to care about and focus on one another. Questions as small as “What's your name?” have the power to create big change and make a big impact on the rest of the world.
