Tom Brady’s littlest fan loses fight with cancer
Ten-year-old cancer patient Logan Schoenhardt, who in December lived out his dream of meeting Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, has died.
Schoenhardt’s story gained national attention during a social-media campaign that brought the Connecticut boy’s wish to the attention of the Patriots and Brady. He passed away Monday, according to Ray Lagan, the head of the Masters School in Simsbury, where Logan was a fourth-grade student.
Logan visited with Brady at the team’s facility in Foxborough, Mass., and was named the team’s honorary captain for its Dec. 4 win over the Los Angeles Rams.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft offered his condolences in a statement Tuesday, saying the team has met some great fans over the years, “but none that could rival Logan’s passion for the Patriots and his love for Tom Brady.”
Schoenhardt had been fighting since he was diagnosed with a brain tumor when he was 3, according to ESPN’s E:60 feature on the boy’s empowering relationship with the Patriots.
“He knows he’s never going to play football, which he would dearly love to do. So he lives through them, especially Brady,” Jo Schoenhardt, Logan’s mother, said in the video.
After multiple surgeries, radiation treatments and rounds of chemotherapy, Schoenhardt’s tumor returned in 2016, the year following the Patriots’ comeback victory over the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX. Before his sixth brain surgery in seven years, Schoenhardt asked the doctor to engrave Brady’s No. 12 on the side of his skull.
“Given what it might do for him from a morale perspective,” said Dr. Jonathan Martin, Schoenhardt’s surgeon, “I said, ‘Why not?'”
When Schoenhardt stepped into the Patriots’ facility in December, the player he looked up to for inspiration finally was more than a just a number.
“He is a special young man,” Brady said after their meeting, according to ESPN. “Just to have a chance to know his story has been very humbling and certainly gives me a lot of perspective.”
Brady opened up about his mother, Galynn’s, cancer diagnosis following Super Bowl LI, dedicating the Patriots’ remarkable win over the Falcons to “the best mom in the world.”
With AP