Doing it For Danny

The West Islip varsity football team was playing for a lot more than wins this past season. Playing for more than school pride, championships and local bragging rights. 

They were playing for Danny. 

No, five-year-old Danny Alini couldn’t be found in the huddle, but if you looked adjacent to the players lined up on the sidelines during home games, he’d be visible, most likely propped up on his father Tommy’s shoulders with a West Islip Lions cap on. 

Since he was three, Danny has been battling Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia; a disease that’s kept him in and out of the hospital, including extensive days of chemotherapy. 

“We go through it one day at a time,” Tommy says. “Some people don’t grasp it. They don’t understand. When you have leukemia, you have very, very long treatments. He has a little over a year left of chemo.”

What’s particularly emotive about Danny’s situation is that several players on the football team have embraced him. Matt Brady, a senior defensive back, decided to create t-shirts that every player and coach wears underneath their game jersey. On the front it says, “Lions 4 Life” and on the back, “Do it 4 Danny.”

“Last year I was a junior, and coach Mileti decided to bring Danny to the team and dedicate the season to him,” Brady says. “All I really cared about was football at first. But then I realized here’s this five-year-old kid fighting for his life, and it just made me realize that there’s a lot more serious things in life.”

Matt says he tries to visit Danny as much as he can in between school and sports and when Danny isn’t receiving treatment. 

“He took a liking to Danny right away,” Matt’s father Scott said.  “Him being a tough football player he always had a soft spot for kids.  We donated the shirts to the team and we try to sell the rest at games.”

So far, they’ve raised about $500 in t-shirt sales, which will go to the Alini’s treatment. But it’s the awareness it raises for Danny which is of upmost importance to the Bradys.   

“People like Scott and Matt, coach Steve Mileti, Tim Horan [athletic director] they’re strangers to me, they don’t have to invite us on the sidelines of games,” Tommy says.  "To me that shows me what kind of people they are.”

He paused.

“It’s crazy, man. These people, they’re like angels. I don’t even know what to say. These people are the reason why my son is doing good.”