How an NFL Player’s Advocacy for Duchenne Is Touching the Lives of Children

Most people know Clay Matthews as the superstar Green Bay Packers linebacker with long, blonde hair and a trademark predator-sack celebration — I know Matthews as a person with a soft heart and a real passion for evoking change.

Matthews is a champion for boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.  Duchenne is a progressive muscle-wasting disease that primarily affects boys. By the time boys with Duchenne come of age, they can only watch in pain from the seat of a wheelchair as everyone around them moves flawlessly through life. As someone with this awful disease, I know what that feeling is like.

The story begins back in 2010 when CureDuchenne, a nonprofit started by my parents, had the opportunity to pick an NFL player to represent the Duchenne cause in a Cadillac promotion for the Super Bowl. I was 12 years old at the time, and Matthews was new to the NFL.

Since then, we have all grown so much — CureDuchenne, Matthews and I.  With Matthews’ help, CureDuchenne raised over $1 million with the Super Bowl promotion, which allowed the organization to invest in early scientific research, resulting in the first FDA-approved drug to treat the disease. Matthews became an NFL superstar, and I grew up and went to college.

Read the full article here.

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