High School Athlete With Liver Disease Gets Support From His Opponents
NEW RAYMER, Colo. (CBS4) - Two days before his team's first round game in the Colorado high school boys' basketball state championship tournament, 18-year-old Zacc Winn noticed something was wrong.
The Prairie senior had played through pain before, even collapsing at a team practice in January. Winn also knew that tournament game against the Holly Wildcats, set for Thursday, March 12, could be his last.
"Going into it, I wasn't feeling very good at all," Winn said. "I didn't want to go into the hospital, then I would have missed the game, and that's what I waited my life for."
At 13 doctors diagnosed Winn with primary sclerosing cholangitis, a life-threatening disease that causes his liver to leak bile. Eventually Winn will need a liver transplant. Since then, Winn has been in and out of Children's Hospital several times each year, his family making the 2-hour drive to Denver every time the pain of his condition becomes too much to bear.
"It's pretty painful," Winn said, "I have a stomach cramping a lot, and my energy is not very good."
Through competitive sports Winn finds an outlet for the pain and frustration of his disease. In addition to starring on his high school's basketball team in New Raymer, Winn participates in track and field.
"I just like having a team and being part of something bigger," Winn said.
The decision to allow Winn to compete is not one his parents and coaches take lightly. It's also a decision, once made, that they all stand behind.
"It's been hard giving him the freedom to do what he wants to do, but knowing what the outcome could be," said Winn's mother, Sandy Winn. "He'll look at me a certain way and I'll know something's starting to happen."
Winn is, essentially, waiting for his liver to fail. He doesn't know when that will happen. When it does, he'll be added to the list of people in Colorado who need an organ transplant. Then he will wait. In the meantime, with his parents' and coaches' blessing, he's decided to live life the way he wants to -- playing sports.
On the basketball court one wouldn't know much about Winn's medical battles, if they could even tell at all. Certainly that was the case for Winn's last opponents, the Holly basketball players.
"He played just like everybody else, he showed no signs of weakness," said senior Holly basketball player Bailey Kennedy.
During the rival teams' game Winn stood out as an aggressive defender, one who would not quit.
"What caught my eye was when he blocked Bailey," recalled Holly sophomore Yaniel Vidal, who plays guard. "I've never seen anybody get up that fast, it's pretty amazing."
Holly ended the game victoriously, with a final score of 64-50. The Wildcats went on to claim the state championship title. The game was Winn's last competitive high school basketball match. And, unbeknownst, at first, to his Holly opponents, was a game in which Winn played so hard, he wound up back at Children's Hospital the very next day.
Word spread through social media, eventually reaching Holly basketball fan Janene Turner. She stumbled across a post about a spaghetti dinner played in support of Winn's medical fight, and says she was immediately inspired. Turner started a GoFundMe page aiming to raise $5,000 to help Winn's family with expenses related to his illness -- the long drives back and forth from the hospital, food and hotel stays while Winn seeks care.
"In today's day and age you see so many people with so many excuses on why they can't do something," Turner said, "Here is this 18-year-old kid ... who steps out on to the basketball floor time after time to be there for his team and his fans."
Within days members of the Holly basketball team, their fans, and community had surpassed the fundraising goal. People who never met Winn were sending handwritten messages of support.
"We all felt compelled to help this guy out," Kennedy said. "As hard as he played, we needed to do it for him."
After a few days in the hospital Winn regained his strength and returned home. He's back to running track. He never knows when the next flare-up will hit. But he's not focusing on that, either. The outpouring of support from people (many of whom are otherwise strangers) has been overwhelming to Winn and his family, relieves financial stress, and has taught both the Holly and Prairie teams and fans a lesson in sportsmanship.
"When you're on the court, they're your enemy," Kennedy said. "But you've got to know that once you're off the court they can be your friend."
LINK: GoFundMe: Be A WINNer! Fund a Liver for Zacc!
Lauren DiSpirito is CBS4's Northern Newsroom reporter. Follow her on Twitter @CBS4Lauren. Share your story ideas with her here.
