Let’s Change the Odds

The first Cancer Warrior I met was Lucy. 

This was back in 2017, when she was at our training ground in Seattle, where we sometimes host kids fighting cancer. She was just a tiny thing: Six years old, blonde hair, big smile, and a T-shirt that read I’M DEDICATED. I’M INSPIRED. 

Three years earlier — on Christmas Eve, of all times — Lucy had been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow. She had to undergo a bone marrow transplant, a terribly harsh procedure that she had to endure twice to achieve remission. But when I met her, she had just gotten out of the hospital, and she was running around laughing. I threw her a ball, and she kicked it right back to me. Her parents said they hadn’t seen her that lively in months. 

When we said goodbye, I hoped she would be one of the happy stories. I wanted to shout out to her: “Go live your life, Lucy! Make friends! Experience the world!”

Two years later, Lucy was back in the hospital. 

The cancer had returned.

She needed what her mom called “The Big Guns Chemo.” This was right around Christmas again, in 2019, and I remember driving through the cold to the hospital, and seeing the holiday lights on all the houses, where kids were about to open their presents. Half an hour later, I was standing outside Lucy’s room in a white, full-body coverall suit and blue rubber gloves. The nurses had pulled me aside to warn me that Lucy was not in a good mood.

Which was fine. I just wanted to be there for her. 

When I entered the room, she was wearing pink pajamas, and her bed was full of fluffy toys. There was a big white machine next to her with lights and diagrams flashing and beeping. She had a tube going into her nose. Most of her hair was gone. 

She didn’t smile when she saw me. But then I spotted a half-finished gingerbread house. 

“You want some help with that?”

She nodded, and soon we were setting up the walls together. Just before we put on the roof, we took a picture, and then, finally….

Lucy cracked a smile. 

For a brief moment, she had escaped cancer. I think we spent about 10 minutes together, and as I walked out the door, I waved goodbye. 

“Merry Christmas, Lucy,”

She waved back and smiled. 

A few months later, Lucy passed away. 

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I wish I could tell you that Lucy was the only Cancer Warrior I’ve met who’s passed away. But this disease is brutal and vicious.

One in five kids with cancer dies. 

So if 20 kids show up at our training ground … Yeah, you do the math. 

But the amazing doctors and researchers at Seattle Children’s Hospital have a saying that I love:

“It’s not about beating the odds. It’s about changing the odds.”

To be honest, I didn’t fully realize what that meant until I got a random letter back in 2017. It was from a mom named Christine, whose three-year-old daughter was battling stage 4 kidney cancer. She was raising money for research by designing Sounders scarves and selling them through a little website she’d created called Scarves Fighting Cancer. She had already created some cool ones for Cristian Roldan (featuring pizza slices) and coach Brian Schmetzer (Rave Green Army). Christine knew I was an artist and asked if I would create my own design. 

And I just remember thinking, I can do this. 

The platform that I had, the following from Sounders fans combined, with what I could contribute as an artist … I realized I was uniquely qualified to do something meaningful. Growing up in Switzerland, I used to take the train to school, and I would admire graffiti along the tracks. Art is my counterpoint to goalkeeping. 

On the pitch, an error is a horror show. 

On the canvas, even a mistake can lead to something beautiful. 

A few weeks later, I emailed Christine a design that showed me stretching for the ball with a yellow ribbon in my palm. The text said YOU SHALL NOT PASS — a meme among Sounders fans — and on the reverse I wrote SOUNDERS FC in my own freehand graffiti lettering. Here’s me with one of the iterations, next to Christine’s daughter, Jane. Pretty cool, right? 

When Christine saw it, she actually told her scarf rep, “OMG, we’re gonna cure cancer.”

A few weeks later she invited me, Cristian and Brian to Seattle Children’s Hospital to present a check for $18,004 — the proceeds from the scarf sale. That’s when it really hit me.

We’re changing the odds in our favor. 

I found that realization tremendously powerful. I’m not a parent. I don’t plan to be. But you don’t need kids of your own to help shape the future. 

In the eight years since that day, I’ve continued to use my art to help Christine raise money for the most advanced childhood cancer research in the world. From designing scarves and glass votives to curating “Clean Sheet” candles, I’ve continued to harness my creativity to make a difference. We’ve returned each year to deliver more checks, and we’ve raised more money than I ever thought was possible. Through it all I’ve met dozens more Cancer Warriors, and I can honestly say this work has been one of the most meaningful things I’ve ever done. 

It’s funny … I actually used to wrestle with the idea of being a role model. When I look in the mirror, I still see an Average Joe from Switzerland who just happens to play football. A few years ago I even used to tell fans, “Look, I’m just like you.” The intention was to be more relatable, make people see themselves in you.

And maybe you can tell adults that. But kids? 

Man, the reality is … that Sounders crest is like a big red S on your chest. And once I realized that, I was like…. If you can be a superhero for these kids, why wouldn’t you?

As athletes we’re not even close to realizing how much power we can have. Many years ago my Sounders teammates and I hosted a young boy named Nathan at one of our games. He had diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), a brain tumor that kills most patients within a year. It’s the worst of the worst. As a Texan, his dream was to meet Clint Dempsey, who was still on our team at the time. Clint could have said no. Or done the whole fake smile, quick selfie, bye-bye thing. But he took Nathan on a full VIP stadium tour, showing him the locker room and taking pictures with him. Nathan was even walking around in his own XXS Clint Dempsey shirt, and I remember seeing him smile the whole day. 

A few months later, Nathan passed away. Hearing that news … it was brutal. It felt so unfair. I’m an old man now at 39, but if I get cancer, at least I’ve lived. Nathan was supposed to have his whole life ahead of him! 

Why him? Where is the justice? I still don’t know. 

The game after he passed, we wore black armbands in his honor. As we lined up, I thought about his mom and dad, and the pain they must have been going through. For a long time, I didn’t truly know what it felt like to have someone you love fight cancer. But then in 2022, I found out. 

Right around Christmas that year, my mom called me out of the blue. I actually missed her call because I was so busy working on our new house on Bainbridge Island. When I called her up, she could barely speak. 

“Stefan … I don’t want to scare you, but … I’m in a hospital emergency room. They’ve found a tumor.”

Stage 4 lung cancer. 

Mom said the surgery would be on the 23rd of December. She had been living in Seattle for a few years by this time, and my brother flew in from New York with his wife to be there for her. Suddenly, none of that house s*** mattered. But on the 23rd, we had a crazy snowstorm in Seattle, and everything was frozen over. My brother was staying in Magnolia, at my mom’s place, a townhouse at the bottom of a hill, and when he tried to drive up, the road was too slippery. He literally tried to crawl his way up on all fours, but he had no chance. I live on an island out in the woods, so I was supposed to be the one who didn’t make it, but I took some back roads, and I ended up being the only one who was there for the surgery prep. 

Suddenly I was in the same seat as a cancer parent. Sitting in a hospital room, waiting and waiting and waiting, hoping for the best, fearing the worst, simply praying because what else can you do?

Despair doesn’t even cover it. Your world is spinning. The earth is moving. Life feels so fragile, so random and heartless. You keep telling yourself it’s gonna be OK, but you don’t know. You never do.

Even just hearing about the surgery scared the hell out of me. The doctors removed a tumor two inches wide that had been pressing against the part of my mom’s brain responsible for speech. The X-rays showed a huge void in her head, because the brain needed time to move back into place. They did Gamma Knife surgery, where they shoot down the smaller tumors without making incisions. Thankfully, it was all a success. 

That year, December 24 was a complete wash, but I’ll never forget the 25th, when Mom came home to our place. We had no presents, no fancy dinners. I think we just made a quick meal and talked. 

That Christmas, the gift was simply that we had each other. 

Still, my mom’s outlook was fairly grim. Cancer treatment has side effects that last for life, and we were talking with the doctors about how long she could reasonably expect to live. We had to get her will together, which was very heavy. Somehow, the most upbeat out of all of us was her. 

And then, literally two days before she was about to start chemo and immunotherapy, the doctors did a biopsy of the cancer cells they removed. They found that she had a very rare genetic trait that would allow her to have targeted therapy, which means taking a pill twice a day instead of doing chemo. It’s usually found in people of Asian descent, but she had it, and it was a game-changer.

Since then my mom has gone on trips to Switzerland and Mexico. This August she went with my godmother to visit Montana. She’s not just surviving. She’s living. 

Unfortunately, many kids don’t get to do that. 

One of the big issues is that most cancer treatments kids receive were developed for adults. It’s crazy. It’s not really meant for children who are still developing. The doctors know that the radiation and chemo will do long-lasting damage to these little boys and girls, but they have to go ahead with it, because that’s the only option they currently have for killing the cancer.

You want to know what’s even crazier? It’s not the science holding us back. 

I mean, they can literally extract blood now and reprogram the cells to kill cancer. They’re called CAR T-cells. It’s incredible. You remember Christine’s daughter? She’s a survivor thanks to modern science. Ten years ago, she’d be dead. The progress is there and I know that the researchers at Seattle Children’s are pushing hard to find better treatment.

But unfortunately, what is holding us back is the fact that children’s cancer research is NOT well funded. 

It has always relied heavily on donations, and when it comes to federal grants, the current administration has cut institutional funding big time. Even as I was working on this article, a consortium dedicated to early phase trials of treatments for children with brain cancer lost its federal funding. Now more than ever, every single dollar matters. So I nearly fell out of my chair when I heard that Audi was going to contribute $50,000 to Seattle Children’s Hospital as part of their Goals Drive Progress initiative. 

Man, that’s a lot of money. I called Christine, and at first she didn’t actually say anything.

I was like, “Christine …?”

“ …… ”

And then she said, “I’M FREAKING OUT!”

She had been really discouraged by all the threats to research funding, and now her head was spinning. 

I don’t know how much CAR T-cell research costs. To be honest, I don’t really care. I just want to keep doing what I can to help these brave children. At the Sounders we’ve had fans, club owners, even our coach and a jersey sponsor step up to match our efforts with donations of their own. I feel like we’ve started something big — a ripple that keeps growing.

Before I sign off, let me tell you about another little boy who is fueling my fire to help researchers find a cure.

Last fall, I met a 10-year-old superfan named Avery, who joined me on the field after our Kick Childhood Cancer match. He was battling DIPG, the same type of brain tumor that had taken Nathan’s life. This summer, his big wish was to come watch us play in the Club World Cup. But when the games arrived, he was too weak to attend. My mom always told me to do the best you can with what you have, so before our last match, I sent him a pair of signed prototype gloves and some cleats I had worn in the tournament. On the day of the game, he wore the gloves proudly as he watched his Sounders compete against the world’s best. 

Avery was one of us. A true Sounder.

A few weeks later, he passed away. 

For those who loved Avery, cancer left a void that will always be there. I hope that someday his family will remember less of the days he spent in the hospital, and more of the days he was smiling, wearing the jersey and rooting for his team. 

But you know what my dream is? 

That kids like Avery get to live.

That warriors like Nathan and Lucy get to grow up.

That the next time I meet five kids at the training ground, I can go home knowing that every single one of them will survive. 

No more devastating news. No more deaths. No more going back to the hospital.

Is that difficult? Yes. 

Is it unrealistic? Absolutely not. 

It’s all about research. Every dollar raised brings us closer. 

That’s why I’m doing this.

That’s what I’m fighting for. 

F*** cancer.

Yours sincerely,

— Stefan

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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 Seattle Children’s Hospital in celebration of the work that both the organization and Stefan Frei 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.