In June 2002, 76ers general manager Billy King appeared at a lemonade stand in the front yard of the home in suburban Philadelphia, said hello to the young girl proprietor, bought some lemonade and made a contribution.
The young girl was 6-year-old Alexandra Scott.
Two days before her first birthday, “Alex” had been diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a children’s cancer. In ensuing years, through numerous surgeries, many sieges of chemotherapy, stem-cell transplants and experimental treatments, she gave those around her a lesson in bravery, perseverance and even perspective.
The first time King visited her, she was holding her third annual Alex’s Lemonade Stand, raising money for pediatric cancer research – not really for her, but for others. On that day alone, she raised $12,000 and donated it to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
King helped see to it that Alex Scott was honored as the 76ers’ Hometown Hero award winner at the 2002-03 season opener, a night when Allen Iverson scored 35 points in a win over the Knicks. King kept coming back to Alex’s Stand the next two years.
Alex died in August 2004. She was 8.
Today, the 76ers’ Hometown Hero award, handed out at every home game, is named after her. Two weeks ago, King was honored with the Alex Scott Crystal Cup at the inaugural “Lemonade Ball” in Philadelphia, and the gala raised $475,000 for the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation.
“He was one of the first ones we called to be on our board of directors,” Alex’s mother, Liz Scott, said Monday from the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation office in Wynnewood, Pa. “We thought maybe he wouldn’t have enough time or be hesitant to commit, but he right away said he would, and he’s gotten more and more involved ever since.”
I’ve contributed and been on the mailing list for a while, and I thought about Alex more over the past few weeks, unashamedly in part because of a horse racing connection. I’m upfront about being moved by Barbaro’s struggle for life and shaken by his death. I know others believed the human passion for an equine story was much-ado excess, but I still don’t understand why they simply didn’t move on to those things that interest them more – such as those discussions over who might be the Rockies’ fifth starter, or the always-compelling semantic debate over whether golfers are athletes.
When Barbaro died, I also thought of another famous horse whose career ended prematurely because of injury, 2005 Preakness and Belmont winner Afleet Alex, and again about the little girl who – coincidentally, but providentially – was his namesake.
After finishing third in the Kentucky Derby, Afleet Alex won the final two legs of the Triple Crown. Soon after his Belmont win, he was found to have a hairline fracture in his left front cannon bone. He recovered from that, but other problems sprang up, and in December 2005, his owners – five down-to-earth friends from the Philadelphia area – announced the colt’s retirement. He is at stud at Gainesway Farm in Lexington, Ky., and his first offspring, a colt, was born Jan. 21.
Before and during the 2005 Triple Crown campaign, Afleet Alex’s owners were instrumental in calling attention to, and supporting, Alex’s Lemonade Stand. Alex was gone by then, but her picture and her battle were one of the major story lines of that Triple Crown season.
“We were wondering if we would be able to keep this going without Alex,” Liz said. “But with Afleet Alex, we were able to take it to a whole new level, and millions of people were able to hear about our daughter and keep the cause going.”
In Monday’s mail, I received my latest newsletter from Alex’s Lemonade Stand. The foundation raised $5 million in 2006, about $1 million of it coming from more than 1,000 Lemonade Stands run by children from coast to coast. Among the many grants awarded was one for $100,000 to Denver Children’s Hospital. The Englewood-based Big O Tires is one of the foundation’s major sponsors.
“If you saw this in a movie, you’d say, ‘Oh, come on,”‘ Liz Scott said. “I still am just amazed at the generosity of people and how kids especially have grabbed onto this and continued it.”
The foundation’s website is www.alexslemonade.org.
