How a Girl Fighting Cancer Changed My Life

The first time I met Abby, we were doing Box Car Movie Night.

The Revs were hosting a group of kids who were in remission battling cancer, and we were creating cars from cardboard boxes, then watching Cars on a big screen in one of the stadium suites. This was in 2017, and I remember walking over to this little girl who had just put a strip of zebra wallpaper on her car.

I said, “Hey, nice ride!”

She said, “Thanks!”

“You want some help with the coloring?”

“Sure.”

Abby was about 10 years old back then. Thank God, her condition wasn’t terminal. She didn’t have a breathing apparatus or anything like that, just short hair. 

I think I put a piece of green paper on the front of her car, and I said something like, “So, Abby, what’s your favorite thing to do?”

Just a conversation starter, you know?

She said, “Well, um … I love playing sports …but … um … I sorta can’t do that anymore….”

Man….. 

My heart sank. 

I was 25 back then, a few years into my Revs career, and I couldn’t imagine a life without sports. I felt so bad for her, and I remember staring down at the carpet for what felt like an hour, trying to think of a way to console her. Then, all of a sudden Abby perked up. 

“But it’s OK, because now I’m dancing instead!”

She gave me the widest smile I’ve ever seen. 

Then I noticed the writing on the front of her T-shirt.

What do you call a CHEESE that isn’t yours?

NACHO CHEESE!

I chuckled. So funny. So good. 

So Abby. 

Abby was completely unfazed by her battle with cancer. It’s hard to even describe it, but meeting her gave me a new appreciation for life. She was an immediate inspiration. As a soccer player doing community work, you don’t expect to really bond with a kid, you know? You do what you can and get on with your day. 

When the lights went out and the movie got going, the players were supposed to go home. 

Two hours later, I was still there. Eating popcorn, talking to Abby and her parents, Amy and Matt. The Waldrons. 

I said, “If you guys ever want to come to our games, just call me.”

We exchanged numbers, and I began sending Abby a text maybe once a week, just to check in. “How are you doing? How was school this week?” About two months later, they showed up at a Revs game, and when she came down on the field after the match, I surprised her with a big, snuggly Revs blanket that had ABBY written on it. She grabbed the blanket and looked at me. Another huge smile. 

A few weeks later, Abby’s family invited me over for dinner. Then on the 4th of July they texted me like, “Hey, what are you doing?”

I remember one day in particular when I was at their place, and Abby’s dad said, “Andrew, let me show you something.”

He led me down a staircase and into his basement, where he had one of the biggest collections of sports cards I’ve seen. NFL, NBA, everything. He had a fat stack of New England Revolution cards, too. I picked up a couple, flipped them around and saw one with a picture of me.

ANDREW FARRELL 

I looked at Matt. 

Without missing a beat he looked me in the eye and said, “I wouldn’t trade that guy for anything.”

Over the next few years, the Waldrons became some of my closest friends. My mom and dad were living back in Kentucky, so when I was away, they would watch my bulldog, Rufus. I played Fortnite with Abby and her dad. We exchanged Christmas presents. They met my parents. They were there for me, and for each other. 

When Abby had to cut her hair short, her younger sister, Maddy, she did the same, just to make Abby feel like she didn’t stand out that much in school. 

With cancer, it never affects just one person. It touches the lives of parents, grandparents, cousins, friends. 

By helping one person, you can mean the world to a dozen more.

Over time, I began feeling almost like an older brother to Abby. I’ll never forget when I went to her dance recital. I was actually a little late to the show, because when I walked into the room she was already up on the stage, but once she noticed me, she lit up, the way a kid does when she spots her parents rooting for her. 

And I thought, Wow, this is so cool. 

All I’d done was show up, but I felt so important to her. 

I waved. 

“Go Abby!”

She waved back and smiled. 

And then she danced like she was at the center of the universe. 

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In 2023, six years after meeting Abby, I was asked by the Revs community outreach staff if I wanted to host children battling cancer at some of our home games. Total no-brainer, you know?  

I’m not gonna lie though ... the first time, my nerves were a mess. 

I was going to meet with this boy named Andrew, and my head was spinning. It was like, What do I say? Don’t ask generic questions. Don’t make him feel nervous. 

I just wanted to give him the best day of his life.

I remember meeting him at the stadium with his brother and his parents. We were working with NEGU, which stands for Never Ever Give Up and is part of the Jessie Rees Foundation, and the thing is, by that point in my life, I knew what community work was all about. My adoptive parents are Presbyterian missionaries who have dedicated their lives to helping people. When I got older, I worked with the Special Olympics and animal rescue centers. I had my friendship with the Waldrons. And as a Revs player, I’d seen the incredible work that Kelyn Rowe and Matt Turner had put in as leaders for the initiative. 

But I don’t care who you are … when a little kid turns up with his parents for a day that they’ve anticipated for half a year, and you’re in charge, it’s serious pressure.

We met in the tunnel where the team buses drive through. All it had was a couple of trash bins and some sports drinks stacked up, but Andrew was looking around as if he’d stepped into an art gallery. And one thing I’d learned is that kids who are fighting cancer don’t want to be treated any differently. 

So I decided to treat him like a fellow pro. 

I was like, “Hey guys, I’m Andrew. Thanks so much for coming. Big game today. Let’s go check out your uniform.”

His eyes widened. “My uniform?!?!?!?”

“Of course. It’s Game Day!”

This was a few hours before kickoff, and I wanted to make Game Day as real for him as it is for me. I led him and his family into our locker room, and I showed him a little thing we had arranged: 

A locker with his name on it. 

His own jersey, too. 

Man. He was pumped.

At some point, I told his parents that they had to leave the locker room. See, we were going into Game Mode. I turned to Andrew and said, “Now make sure your uniform’s the right size.”

He checked the shirt and the shorts and the cleats. 

“If you want to send ’em back, we’ve got the kit man right here.”

“No, no! They’re good.”

“Now, if you have any pre-game superstitions, this is the time.”

He just laughed. Then we went out for the warmup, and Andrew did a fist bump with all the players. We took a photo, he went up with his family to watch the game from one of the suites, and when he came back down to meet me afterwards, he was still locked in. I said, “Come on, let’s go meet the other guys.”

He was like, “Oh great! Where’s Carles??”

A couple of months later, Andrew actually came back, and this time he turned up with like 12 people — family, friends, relatives. 

To us, it was just another game. 

To him, it was a memory for life.

So yeah, Andrew was awesome. Love that little dude. Less than a year later, I ended up meeting another incredible kid named Ryan. 

He visited us when we played New York in May last year. We actually lost that game 1–0, and it’s a crazy feeling because you’re so focused on the game, and for 90 minutes your entire world is about wanting your team to win a game of soccer, and then we concede from a cross nine minutes before the end…. On that day I was on the bench, but you’re still in Game Mode, and you walk onto the field to greet your opponents, but you’re pissed, and your world is crumbling, you don’t really want to talk to anybody .... and then, out of the blue, you see this little boy, and he’s staring at you like: 

😃

He doesn’t care if you’ve lost 5–0. 

He’s battling cancer. 

That’s the real fight. 

And you feel a little stupid. Like yeah, you lost three points, but you have it easy. And now you can change the life of this kid right in front of you. 

I remember that I took Ryan on a lap of honor, like we always do after the game, and we stopped in front of the fans. He was wearing his own jersey.

NEGU CREW

24

Our new signing. On a day-long loan from the Jessie Rees Foundation. 

And our amazing fans are in on it. That game was actually our third-straight loss at Gillette, and they could have gone home angry, maybe even a couple of minutes early to beat the traffic. But they stayed behind to sing Ryan’s name. When I saw how much he was enjoying that moment, I did something I don’t normally do. 

The first row of the stands is about eight feet above the field. It’s too high to interact with the fans, so I lifted Ryan up to our supporters. 

He high-fived one fan after the other. We did the whole row.

A day earlier, he might have been staring into a white hospital wall. 

And now he was being treated like our MVP.

When we finished with all the high fives and I put Ryan down, I looked over at his parents, and his mom was crying. 

She had tears streaming down her face. 

Who knows what they had gone through at that point, you know? And now, for a brief moment, all the heavy stuff was forgotten. For that one day at least, he could simply be a kid again. 

Ryan’s mom actually said that it was the happiest she’d ever seen him. And for me, hearing that? It was like ….. 

Damn! This is what life’s all about. 

If you can make someone feel that way, why not do it all the time? 

After something like that, you walk into training the next morning feeling like a giant. You remember that a real challenge is having a disease that threatens your life. It’s not dealing with a defeat at home to New York. 

Of course, there’s another side to it. Doing this work? I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but, the reality is … it can be heavy. We do hospital visits, and you’re standing next to a little girl, her parents are looking worried, and the room is lined with beds, syringes and doctors talking, and that sound….  Beep ……. Beep …… Beep ….. 

And you don’t really know what to say to the girl. But the thing is, you don’t have to. You just have to be there. Show that you care. Crack a joke. Tell her that the Revs are rooting for her. 

When you go home that night, you know that for a few minutes that day, you meant something to someone. 

Probably way more than you can even understand. 

We definitely need more of that in this world.

One of my proudest days with the Revs was on a Tuesday afternoon, right after an exhausting training session, when every single player lined up to fill the Joy Jars.

The jars are filled with toys, candy, books, blankets and stuffed animals, and we send them to kids who are in hospital and can’t get to a game. If you spend most of your day in a hospital bed, that jar means a lot. That’s why it means a lot to me that Audi is contributing $50,000 to NEGU this year. That money is a lot of jars. A lot of kids helped. It’s hundreds of smiles, experiences and stories that these kids and their families will be talking about for years. How can you even put a value on that?

I’m also honored that Audi is recognizing me as a community leader, and a candidate for this year’s Audi Goals Drive Progress Impact Award. I hope this story will inspire other athletes to get involved as well. 

You might think that you’re there to just give and give. 

But actually, you get even more back.

You know, I haven’t played much these past 18 months. It’s actually tricky, because before a game, my parents will text me saying, “Good luck tomorrow!”

And I’ll reply, “Guys ... I’m not on the roster.”

Sometimes they don’t even text, because they don’t know what to say. 

I turned 33 in April. I’ve played this game my entire life. I can’t just put on a suit and walk into the boardroom of a company, and I’ve definitely felt a lot of the fear that many soccer players face near the end of their careers. I’m lucky to have had some great advice from friends like Teal Bunbury at Nashville, and Paolo DelPiccolo at Louisville City. But the people I’ve spent the most time with?

The Waldrons. 

Abby’s 18 now. She graduated a few weeks ago, and she’ll start college at the University of New Hampshire this fall. She wants to work with the Special Olympics — just like I did. 

She also keeps spraining her wrists and ankles. At this point, her mom goes, “Guess who’s in a cast again?”

But even when Abby is tired or broken, you’d never know. 

She’s too strong to let it show.

Whenever I have been down, she’s told me to focus on what I can control. It’s easy to understand the concept, but when you’re friends with a girl who has been battling cancer almost every day of her life, and you see how she implements that lesson day to day, you realize what that actually means.

Do what you can. Let go of the rest. 

Got a challenge? Take it on. 

Push through.

Last year, I decided to start coaching at the Revs academy. It’s been a revelation for me, and I think it has shown me what I want for my next career. 

You’re not just coaching soccer players. You’re helping people for a living.

You’re bringing up the next generation. 

And if that ends up being my true calling, then I am even more thankful to have spent so much time getting to know these kids, because it really has shown me the way. Sometimes I think back to that Box Car Night eight years ago, when I gave a little girl a hand with her cardboard ride. What did I get back?

A new perspective.

A second family. 

A friend who showed me what true bravery looks like.

Thank you, Abby. 

Keep dancing.

Sincerely, 

— Andrew

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Audi Goals Drive Progress initiative supports MLS athletes making an impact off the pitch through financial contributions to nonprofit organizations that create sustainable communities, foster equity and inclusion, and enrich the lives of those in need. Through the Audi Goals Drive Progress fund, Audi will be contributing $50,000 to the NEGU Jessie Rees Foundation in celebration of the work that both the organization and Andrew Farrell do for their community. For more stories on Audi’s commitment to supporting MLS athletes and their community initiatives, please check out additional content from the “Celebrating Impact” series.