Griz player gives kids a lift

A trip to the local Wal-Mart one day became life-changing for one University of Montana Griz football quarterback.

In September while shopping at the store, Jason Washington, a red-shirt Griz quarterback and junior in business administration and sociology, was approached by a family who recognized him. The family, all huge Griz fans, had a daughter with a terminal illness.

“Seeing this family and what they deal with reminded me of my trips to the hospital to see my cousin,” Washington said. His 5-year-old cousin, Kian Jordan Rose, has had Hurler Syndrome, an uncommon terminal enzyme disease, since he was only 15 months old.

After talking with the family for more than half an hour, Washington said he realized he wanted to do something to help.

The result is a season-long effort by Washington to bring families with terminally ill children to Griz games at Washington-Grizzly Stadium. Sidelined by an injury and looking for a way to better Griz football and its players’ images, Washington thought this season would be the ideal time for him to start the program.

One family is invited each weekend there is a home game and not only does Washington donate his player’s seats to the family, but they also get the opportunity to be on the field before the game to meet the players, thanks to field passes donated by the University. Along with the game experience, the family is given a gift bag donated by the President’s Office.

“When you see the smile on a child’s face and realize it’s the biggest thing in a kid’s life (to meet you), and you hear they haven’t smiled in six months or something but they smiled when we came running out of the tunnel (at a Griz game), it means so much and really humbles you,” Washington said. “I want to make them feel like kids for one day and bring them out of the hospital.”

After the injury sidelined Washington in the third quarter of the fourth Griz game last year against Weber State, perhaps Washington himself also wanted to be on the field and off the hospital bed. He suffered a third-degree shoulder separation, which required surgery in June.

“This injury really humbles you and makes you think about others,” he said.

Washington has brought more than eight families to home Griz games this fall with the help of the Montana Hope Project and Christie Anderson, director of marketing in Grizzly Athletics.

Washington intends to make this project a tradition for a Griz red-shirt quarterback each year. And Washington, who grew up in Oakland, Calif., and is the nephew of Gene Washington, director of NFL operations, said he definitely wants to be involved in the program again in some capacity, even when he is back on the playing field.

“It (the project) made me value the gift that God gives you every day, just to wake up,” he said.