How Detroit Lions Receiver St. Brown Lifted Spirits For Cancer Patient

HUNTLEY, IL — The news that changed his life is already three weeks old, and yet, Lucas Gidelski still has difficulty putting the past 21 days into words — or into its proper perspective.

Only a month ago, the 14-year-old Huntley High School freshman was the starting quarterback for his Red Raiders football team and prepared to move on to his next athletic endeavor. That has, perhaps, made the adjustment to living with cancer and the chemotherapy treatments that make him nauseous and strips him of his strength even tougher to come to grips with.

But for the past five days, Lucas' spirits have been lifted with an unexpected encounter with Detroit Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown that has gone viral after video of a brief conversation between the Huntley teenager and an NFL receiver he had only admired from a distance was released by the NFL earlier this week.

Almost a week later, the sideline meeting at Soldier Field still doesn’t feel real to Lucas, who was recently diagnosed with T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma. As he and the rest of his family are now coping with a new reality that requires weekly visits to Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, Lucas is now surrounded by reminders of the kindness of strangers that he never expected to experience first-hand.

“I didn’t know what to say,” Lucas told Patch on Friday of the meeting that has brought with it an expected dose of social media attention. “I was just in shock that Amon-Ra St. Brown was talking to me.”

The fact Lucas and his father, David, were even in a position for the conversation to take place was no small feat. While the die-hard Lions fans who moved to Huntley in 2014 from Wisconsin typically try to get tickets at Soldier Field for the Lions-Bears game, a family member who had college ties to Lions linebacker Anthony Pittman took action.

After David Gidelski shared his son’s cancer diagnosis with family members, his nephew — who attended Wayne State University in Detroit with Pittman, reached out to the Lions to see what could be done. Within a few days, sideline passes for Lucas had been arranged, and the only question was whether Lucas’ health would allow him to make the trip.

Lucas, who was playing football a month ago, has been forced to remain at home since his diagnosis and the weekly chemotherapy sessions have taken their toll on an active high school freshman normally blessed with endless energy. But cancer has changed everything.

Even though he convinced his father that he felt strong enough to go to the Bears-Lions game, Lucas was forced to remain in a wheelchair to conserve his energy. Lucas collapsed twice on his way between the Soldier Field concourse and the field, which made his father wonder if they had made the right decision to venture to the city for the game.

But that's when a Bears security staffer, Trey Manchester, intervened and took charge of getting Lucas and his father and two friends down the Lions sideline, where he was permitted to remain until 30 minutes before kickoff. Lucas and his traveling party suddenly found themselves in the midst of Lions players and their family members, all thanks to Manchester, who wanted to make sure that not only was Lucas where he was supposed to be but was also front and center.

Pittman, who had arranged for a signed football and other gifts to be sent to Lucas in the days after his diagnosis, had also told his Lions teammates about Lucas and had gotten them to sign a football for the teen, who brought the souvenir gift with him to Solider Field. St. Brown, whose brother plays for the Bears, made his way over and introduced himself — although Lucas had been well aware of him long before last weekend’s meeting.

As cameras rolled, St. Brown — who had just finished a quick photo opportunity with his father and brother — approached Lucas.

“What’s up, bro, how you doing,” he said.

“You’re my favorite player,” Lucas responded.

When told Lucas had been diagnosed with cancer only a few weeks ago, St. Brown knelt in close and signed Lucas’ jersey.

Within seconds, the moment became too much for Lucas, who became emotional before St. Brown left him with one more message.

“You got this,” St. Brown said. “Nothing can stop you, alright?”

The video on the NFL’s Twitter account has gotten nearly 500,000 views since then, while the original video of the encounter has been seen 1.7 million views on St. Brown’s Twitter feed. For David Gidelski, the moment was emotional as well, given everything the family had endured since his son was diagnosed with cancer.

“It was overwhelming for someone to take that much time out of their day,” David Gidelski told Patch on Friday.

“It was emotional, to say the least, to see your kid and see him get as emotional as he was getting — it was amazing because these last three weeks have not been very exciting and have not been putting a smile on his face.”

St. Brown said the encounter will stick with him as well.

"I've never had that happen to me since I played football, " St. Brown said in a podcast interview this week. "Someone breaking down, saying you're my favorite player."

"But after the game, I was thinking about it and thought, 'I've got to do something for this kid.' It was a crazy moment for me."

Lucas calls the last three weeks the craziest stretch of his own life. Originally, he planned to transition from football to basketball while continuing with his first year of high school. But after waking his parents multiple times in the middle of the night because he was having trouble breathing, he was taken to Northwestern Medicine Huntley Hospital and then to Lurie, where doctors diagnosed the cancer. Since then, the last 21 days have all blurred together.

After seeing Lucas’ neck three to four times its normal size, the teen’s parents went from thinking a pill could treat whatever ailed their son to getting the life-changing news that brought their biggest fears to the forefront, David Gidelski said.

“Oh my God, it’s devastating,” Gidelski told Patch on Friday. “The hope in your mind is that the mass (in his neck) is benign, and they ended up finding multiple masses."

He added: “At one point, we really believed we were going to lose our son …and as a father, to have to go in and tell your son he has cancer, Oh my God. It breaks you. You never think that’s what you’re going to have to do in life.”

The past three weeks have been a constant exercise in learning to cope. Some days are better than others, but the family is now working through how to keep Lucas on track with his academics as he continues to go through cancer treatments in Chicago.

But the past week and the outpouring of love and support that have come since Lucas’ sideline meeting with St. Brown have inspired Lucas to keep fighting. Had it not been for the sideline passes the Lions provided, Lucas and his father and friends never would have made the trip. And despite leaving at the end of the third quarter and missing the Lions’ come-from-behind 31-30 victory over the Bears, Lucas and his family have been overwhelmed by everything that has followed.

Lucas hasn’t removed the beanie that the Lions sent him, and the signed jersey that St. Brown autographed for him is now on the wall in his bedroom. A Christmas tree decorated in Honolulu Blue and silver — the Lions team colors — is now in his room, as is a small collection of St. Brown’s football cards surrounding him as he continues to fight.

St. Brown tweeted out a photo of himself and Lucas on Monday, asking for help in locating him so he could send along a game-worn jersey. While St. Brown was always among his favorite players, Lucas says that the sideline meeting changed everything.

His father agrees.

“As a family, we’re pretty strong, but this is definitely helping carry him through the load and making him feel a lot better about everything,” David Gidelski said.

When Lucas left Soldier Field on Sunday, he figured nothing could top that moment, he said. But on Monday, while en route back to Huntley from his appointment at Lurie, David said he saw that the NFL had tweeted out the video of the sideline encounter. Once Lucas saw it and then jumped on TikTok and saw even more attention coming his way, the tears started to flow.

Doctors have told the family that Lucas’ cancer is 100 percent treatable, which gives the teenager and his family hope. But in the tough moments, all Lucas needs to do is look at the video of his encounter with St. Brown and again hear the words that “nothing will stop you now” to keep the faith that everything will indeed be OK.

“The love and support I’m getting from everyone right now — from my family, my friends, everything from the NFL I’m getting, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Anthony Pittman — all the love from everyone is what is encouraging me to keep going and not give up,” Lucas said Friday.

He added: “It just shows that there are a lot of caring people out there that really do care about me.”