Recently, one of the CAL Sports Academy player parents was able to procure a donation to our organization from her generous employers at ALMAC. After some deliberation, we were happy to award the donation in the form of a scholarship to one of our players, Ares Marshall Deardorff. Ares is a wonderful young man who’s family has faced some tough issues recently. Ares’ mother recalls the details.

“My husband Clark was a healthy and very active 35 year old with an 8 year old son and was an expectant father of a baby girl, when two months ago, he became extremely ill due to severe sepsis from a strep infection (a rare case that occurs in 3 of 300,000). He has been in intensive care ever since (today is day 73 for Clark and he has not even met his baby girl just yet). He’s had over 20 surgeries/procedures and hopefully one or two more to go. He wasn’t going to make it this far – they told us that he will likely die. Words like “this is the closest to death a person can get” or “if you believe in any God, this is the time to ask for a miracle” or “his chances are extremely low” played repeatedly in my head for the past two months. But he did, he survived so many close calls along the way as his life was saved by surgeons and the amazing care of multitude of nurses that continue to care for him. He is indeed a miracle.

However, though he fought against all odds and is alive, it came with a price, as our families had to make the most heartbreaking decisions to save his life and he lost all his limbs in the process. There are no words to explain our total devastation, but we are so grateful he is alive. ”

CAL Sports was so happy to both receive the generous donation and then to give it back to one in our community when it was needed most.

It is our sincere hope to continue supporting our CAL family in any way we can. If you know of any business or organization willing to donate, we’d love to pay it forward to a deserving young athlete in our program. You can contact us at office@calsportsacademy.com.