Abilene Christian Assistant AD for Media Relations Lance Fleming is sending this open letter to the CoSIDA community and offering his family's thanks for the tremendous SIDEARM Sports fundraising efforts and CoSIDA generous donations on behalf of his 10-year old son Rex, who died of brain cancer in November.
You can read about the SIDEARM Sports "Movember" campaign and $16,000 in donations
HERE. See more on Rex Fleming and the Fleming family
HERE.
Colleagues,
I have been part of intercollegiate athletics for 15 years now – all at Abilene Christian University – and the people I have met along that journey have been some of the finest I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, from administrators to coaches to student-athletes.
That's never been more true or apparent than in previous two years as my family walked a journey with our son, Rex, and his battle with a malignant brain tumor. We received tremendous support not only from my co-workers and student-athletes at ACU, but also from colleagues and student-athletes at other universities across the nation.
The generosity of all of those people was nothing short of amazing. My wife and I were overwhelmed by the number of calls, emails, texts, cards, etc., that we received from colleagues throughout the nation, re-affirming my belief that this industry we all work in produces great people who genuinely care about each other.
In October, Jeff Rubin at SIDEARM contacted me and asked about donating the proceeds of the company's Movember Mustache contest to our family to do with what we wished and we of course agreed knowing that we had already talked about setting up an endowed scholarship in Rex's name at ACU. Jeff told me that the contest might result in a few thousand dollars being raised, which would have been fantastic.
When the final numbers came in and the total number (with SIDEARM'S matching gift) was more than $16,000, we were floored! For those of you who participated in the contest, sponsored a mustache, contributed to the cause or simply prayed for Rex and our family during November and the last two years alike, we say thank you.
Because of your generosity, we'll be able to donate $15,000 to the Rex Fleming Endowed
Scholarship Fund at ACU, while the rest will be donated to Eastern Little League in Abilene (our home little league) in his name to help with some projects within the league. The scholarship fund needs $25,000 to become an active scholarship, so we're more than halfway there thanks to the generosity of the people in CoSIDA.
The scholarship will be presented each year to an ACU student-athlete who will go into either pre-med or nursing. Wouldn't it be great if a student-athlete who used the Rex Fleming Endowed Scholarship to get through school is one day part of the research team that finally cracks the code on cancer and helps us rid the world of this insidious disease?
As some of you might know, Rex passed away late on the evening of Nov. 25, 2012, just five weeks after celebrating his 10th birthday. He died at home on a Sunday night very peacefully, surrounded by his family, just the way he wanted to slip from this life to the next.
We know that after he took his last breath here on earth, he was greeted in heaven by Jesus and that he is now healed to a degree that we cannot comprehend.
As I wrote on his CaringBridge site, I will never say that Rex lost to cancer. Like Jim Valvano, Rex was afflicted with cancer, but it never touched his heart, it never touched his mind, and it never touched his soul. Those always belonged to God; they never belonged to cancer.
We miss our son tremendously, and we will for the rest of our lives. But we have been held up by our loving family, by a tremendously supportive group of close friends, our community, our church, and by many of you.
The words "thank you" seem so inadequate when trying to express gratitude on this scale, but they're the only words I can seem to find. So, to Jeff Rubin at SIDEARM and all of you throughout CoSIDA and collegiate athletics who participated and gave life to the Rex Fleming Endowed Scholarship Fund, I say thank you on behalf of my entire family (my wife, Jill, our 7-year-old daughter, Ashley, our 1-year-old son, Ryan, and, yes, even Rex).
God Bless,
Lance Fleming
Assistant Director of Athletics for Media Relations
Abilene Christian University
Abilene, Texas