Polo
player makes a boy’s dream come true
By
Alex Webbe
The sport of polo has historically embraced charitable
causes and continued to display a sense of community responsibility, but then
there are a number of causes that resonate within the polo community, and touch
players’ lives. Such was the case of
5-goal polo star Brandon Phillips.
On Sunday, June 7, 1992, fourteen-year-old Brandon
Philips awoke with severe swelling in his right leg. He had played a rugby match two days earlier
and soccer the day before, and assumed that the swelling was sports-related. When the swelling failed to subside, a
medical examination revealed a grapefruit-sized tumor wrapped around Phillips’
ureter (the tube that connects the kidneys with the bladder). Following a biopsy, he was diagnosed with
non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Although his
parents didn’t tell him at the time, the doctors gave him six weeks to live.
His physical strength and conditioning and his positive
outlook allowed the soft-spoken Phillips to withstand months of intensive
chemotherapy, and he returned to his school’s basketball team that November.
So when he was approached by the Leukemia & Lymphoma
Society (LLS) and asked if he would grant a young man’s request to meet a
professional athlete he enthusiastically embraced the opportunity.
Bruce Steinberg was eight-years-old when he was diagnosed
with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, and for three years he missed a week of
school every month so that he could receive treatment. During that time, Bruce remained an
inspiration for his friends and family and a leader on his basketball team.
Bruce and his family met with Brandon Phillips at his
barn the morning before a major polo match and watched him prepare his horses for
the game, then off to the Grand Champions Polo Club where Phillips was playing
for the Piaget polo team in the finals of the USPA Eastern Challenge.
Phillips had scored seven goals in the team’s previous
game, lifting them to a 9-7 win, but the finals would prove to be much more
difficult, and Bruce and his family cheered enthusiastically from the
sidelines.
Phillips scored the first goal of the game and went on to
score two more goals in the course of the game but an Audi goal in the final
four seconds of play gave the game to Audi, 8-7.
“I loved it,” beamed Bruce Steinberg, following the
game. “I loved the horses, the teamwork,
everything,” he said.
As for the loss, Phillips just smiled.
“There’s always another day,” he said. “The secret is to never give up, never quit,”
he offered. “It’s a lot like life,” he
said, “you give it everything you’ve got, you never give up.”
And that’s the philosophy that brought him to where he is
today, one of the game’s top players, and a big supporter of the Leukemia &
Lymphoma Society (LLS).
“Approximately every four minutes someone new is
diagnosed with blood cancer,” said Pamela Payne, the Executive Director of the
Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in Palm Beach County, “and approximately every
10 minutes, someone dies. The Leukemia
& Lymphoma Society (LLS) is the world’s largest voluntary health
organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research and providing education
and patient services,” she added. “Our
mission is to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and
improve the quality of life of patients and their families,” she added. “To see survivors like Brandon and Bruce
continues to fuel hope for future victories.”
Bruce posed with the players, sat on a horse and awarded
trophies at the end of the tournament, with Phillips seeing a bit of himself in
the young man.
Never give up.
Never quit.