The kid pushed his wheeled walker onto the field inside Jets headquarters, his body weak from the cancer but his spirits higher than they had been in weeks. Right away, the players from the NFL team he loved surrounded him in a loose huddle, shouting their encouragement and holding out their fists in a familiar pose.
Braylon Hodgson knew exactly what he had marched out there to do, but just in case, receiver Allen Lazard leaned over and whispered a reminder into his ear. Then, the kid looked up at the expectant athletes and seized the moment.
“Jets on three!” Braylon called out in the loudest voice he could muster that afternoon in mid-June. “ONE-TWO-THREE …”
The players roared in unison.
“JETS!!”
Braylon spent the next several minutes high-fiving and fist-bumping dozens of the Jets, who had just finished one of many practices in a long offseason. He chatted with Lazard about football, took a photo with cornerback Sauce Gardner — his favorite player — and hung out with quarterback Aaron Rodgers for more than 15 minutes.
It is the kind of scene that plays out several times a year around professional teams, often enough that a cynical player might go through the motions. The Jets did not that day. They made Braylon feel like the most important person in the world, sending him home with an autographed Rodgers practice jersey and a ton of happy memories.
Rodgers, of course, would tear his Achilles tendon just four snaps into the 2023 opener on a much-anticipated Monday night, an injury that had an end-of-the-world feeling to it for thousands of fans. The next day, after watching as much of that game as he could with his family at his bedside, Braylon Hodgson died.
He was 13.
# # #
I wanted to tell this story because, far too often, we give the games we watch a life-and-death level of importance that is far out of whack with what really matters. I wanted to tell it because, just as often, we gloss over the many simple acts of kindness that high-profile athletes do on a daily basis in our communities.
But, mostly, I wanted to tell it because I think Braylon will inspire you. It will make you furious at the unfairness of it all, yes, but it will also remind you that the smallest people among us are often the strongest.
Braylon grew up a few blocks from where my family lives in Montclair, and last year, was in the same seventh-grade math class as my son. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and despite his 4-foot-10, 72-pound frame, loved letting his big brother, Ryder, fire shots at him while manning a lacrosse net in their backyard.
He came from a family that loved sports — his older sister, Aven, is a multi-sport athlete at Montclair High, while Ryder is a star golfer at Bergen Catholic — but he would be happy doing just about anything as long as it involved hanging with his friends. In other words, Braylon was a normal kid.
Last fall, he started to complain that he was seeing double, but his parents, Ryan and Kasey, weren’t too worried. Then, Braylon’s left eye suddenly crossed, and they took him to an ophthalmologist. The instruction from the doctor was urgent.
“He needs to get checked out at a hospital — now.”
That was Oct. 2, 2022. The next day, the Hodgsons received the diagnosis that would change their lives. Braylon had diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), an aggressive cancer that forms in the brainstem and quickly spreads throughout the body. It is a disease with only 300 new cases in the U.S. each year, nearly all of them children.
“Your first reaction is, ‘Okay. What do we need to do?’” Ryan Hodgson said. “And their answer was literally, ‘Go home and spend some time with him.’ There’s no cure. Survival rate is zero percent. He’s got about 12-15 months to live.
“We went into fighter mode.”
Braylon underwent radiation treatments as his parents fought to get him into a clinical trial at Stanford University. DIPG is so rare that few hospitals are equipped to treat it. The Hodgsons found the best and were determined to give Braylon, a kid who never shied away from a challenge, a fighting chance.
The treatment at Stanford started in January and involved using CAR-T cells, or immune cells that are harvested and reprogrammed to fight a specific type of cancer. Braylon received 30 million of these CAR-T cells as part of his chemotherapy, the first child ever treated with such a high level.
“It just destroyed him,” Ryan Hodgson said.
Braylon suffered two brain hemorrhages and was too weak for a second dose. He came home from Stanford after nearly three months, excited to be around his friends in New Jersey again, but the cancer had started to spread. DIPG robs patients of their motor functions, resulting in partial paralysis, loss of voice and, finally, their ability to eat and breathe.
As Braylon began his swift decline, his family found a powerful source of strength and grace — from him.
“Never once did he complain, never once was it ‘woe is me,’” Ryan Hodgson said. “Even when he was paralyzed, when he could barely move or talk, he would say to us, ‘I’m sorry.’ He didn’t want us to suffer. He wasn’t thinking about himself.
“It was heartbreaking for us as parents, but it should be inspirational for the world to hear. This kid is suffering. He can’t walk, he can’t move, and his muscles are locked in. His arms are up against his chest — he can’t even open up his hands — and he’s saying ‘I’m sorry’ to us.”
Here was a 13-year-old kid, suffering from an unimaginable disease, feeling bad because his mom and dad were upset.
“It was amazing,” his father said.
# # #
So what, during a trying time like this, could a visit to an NFL team possibly do? More than Ryan Hodgson could have imagined.
Hodgson was born into a Jets family, with his father having season tickets back in the team’s Shea Stadium days. He idolized stars from the 1980s such as Joe Klecko and Al Toon, but he also endured moments like Vinny Testaverde’s injury and Mark Sanchez’s infamous Butt Fumble.
“We’ve been longtime Jets fans — sufferers, I should say,” Ryan Hodgson said with a laugh.
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to pass the fandom down to another generation, but it only took a few trips to MetLife Stadium before Braylon was also hooked. He would run around the house in a Darrelle Revis jersey, and on the family’s frequent trips to the Meadowlands, pose with his arms crossed in front of a life-sized mural of D’Brickashaw Ferguson.
In June, thanks to one of Ryan’s high school friends who had connections with the Jets, Braylon and three of his best friends had an invitation to attend a practice. Even that wasn’t easy. The Canadian wildfires that month had forced the team to close its facility to the public, but luckily, the team made an exception for the Hodgson clan.
They watched practice from the sideline, and when it ended, head coach Robert Saleh introduced Braylon to the team. The players cheered when he broke down the huddle, then lined up to spend time with him before leaving for the locker room.
Braylon Hogdson (center) and his friends poss with Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers following a June practice at the team's Florham Park headquarters. (Photo courtesy of Ryan Hodgson)
“You always hear these stories that they’re just signing something, just giving you something,” Ryan Hodgson said. “It wasn’t that, man. These guys really cared about Braylon. They saw it in his eyes that this kid was suffering, and they just really seemed to care about it.”
As Gardner leaned in for a photo, Braylon’s face — his left eye covered with a patch — lit up. Center Connor McGovern seemed the most moved by the kid, Hodgson said, while Lazard tried to make him feel like he was part of the team. Lazard said he was simply following the example of how to treat people that his own parents set for him.
“Not as an athlete — as a human,” Lazard said. “I was a kid once. I know people that I looked up to, whether they are in the pros or someone who is deemed in society as successful, their words and moments can go a long way.”
It was the highest-profile Jet who left the biggest impression.
Ryan Hodgson had heard stories about Aaron Rodgers that weren’t always flattering, so he wasn’t sure how long the four-time MVP would spend talking to his son. Rodgers lingered for more than 15 minutes, asking Braylon a ton of questions and talking about how much he loved living in New Jersey.
Lazard wasn’t surprised. He had seen Rodgers do the same thing, week after week, during his 18 years in Green Bay. Newer teammates like McGovern, though, were blown away.
“Aaron absolutely kills it with that,” McGovern said. “He always knows the perfect thing to say in that situation, the perfect questions to ask.”
Braylon took home a red autographed Rodgers practice jersey, one that he wore when the quarterback made his debut during a preseason game in late August. In a year filled with tough days, this was a good one for a kid dealt a bad hand.
The still-grieving father wants the world to know how much courage and grace Braylon showed during an impossible year. Ryan Hodgson wants the Jets to know that what they did for his son matters, and he hopes the universe will reward them with some good karma this season.
And if that doesn’t happen?
“In my eyes,” he said, “they’re already winners.”
To help support research for DIPG, the Hodgson family asks that you donate to Tough2gether.
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Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com.