Wilton Bulletin
Across America, many join Wilton's Kick for Nick after ESPN segment airs

Feb 1, 2008

More than 75 people from across the country called and e-mailed The Bulletin looking for ways to join the Kick for Nick soccer ball collection. Each ball on the map indicates a town in America where someone has offered to help. %u2014Bryan Haeffele graphic

A U.S. Army soldier hands out soccer balls from the Kick for Nick drive to Iraqi girls in the village or Koresh. %u2014U.S. Army photo

Bill Madaras had never heard of Alamogorda, N.M., but on Monday two residents of that town reached out to him, and his family, looking for a way to support the Kick for Nick soccer ball collection.

Since the ESPN feature on Pfc. Nicholas Madaras, who was killed in action in Iraq in September 2006, aired Sunday and Monday on the company’s SportsCenter program, Mr. Madaras, Ken Dartley, who founded the drive, and The Bulletin have been inundated with calls from people across the country. From Spokane, Wash., to Miami, Fla., from Bentonville, Ark., to Columbus, Ohio, the list of students, soccer players, firefighters, active and retired soldiers and average citizens hoping to be a part of the drive has just been overwhelming.

Some wanted to share their stories, or to send a ball or a check to the Wilton drive. Others were looking for ways to start their own drive in honor of Pfc. Madaras. In e-mails and in phone calls, residents from across the country said the segment, which followed the soccer balls from Wilton on a journey into the hands of Iraqi children, touched them in ways they weren’t expecting.

“People just pour their hearts out,” said Mr. Madaras about the calls and e-mails he has received since the 10-minute segment aired on ESPN. “People send e-mails saying they got up on the way to work to catch 10 minutes of ESPN and then they’re crying on the way to work.”

One e-mail, in particular, was extremely meaningful, he said.

“Four of the guys who worked with Nick... are back in Iraq,” said Mr. Madaras. “And they were sitting in their rec center and they saw it.”

And Mr. Madaras said ESPN has told him it plans to re-air the segment on a weekend SportsCenter sometime after the Super Bowl, which will only increase the publicity, and the challenge of managing what is now a national campaign.

The segment, he said, was extremely touching and captured what the drive is trying to do, and the message and legacy of his son it hopes to accomplish.

“Just seeing the little legs running from the green grass to the hard-packed earth” in the opening scene of the segment, demonstrated how powerful and important the drive is, said Mr. Madaras.

And one scene in the piece, an interview with an Iraqi man, was particularly touching, he said.

“We would like to say to his family, ‘It is true that he was killed and they lost him,’” said Salah Farag, from the village of Karesh where ESPN showed clips of soldiers handing out balls to Iraqi children. “But as far as we are concerned, he is present with the Iraqi children, and whenever they play soccer, they will remember him.”

Mr. Dartley said he had been fielding phone calls and e-mails all day Monday and Tuesday, with a new flood of correspondence coming in after the group’s Web site, kickfornick.com was launched.

“It has been overwhelming,” he said. “They’re coming from everywhere.”

The challenge now, said Mr. Dartley, is what to do with all the soccer balls he expects to see flooding in in a few days.

“Bill is down at the storage center now seeing what it would take to rent a room,” he said.

And once the balls make their way to Wilton, Mr. Dartley and Mr. Madaras will be working on other logistics.

“A big problem is trying to find places to send these to,” said Mr. Dartley, saying the group can’t overload the soldiers it has built relatinships with with more soccer balls than they can handle. “We’d love to get some contacts in Bosnia... and areas where they can use the soccer balls to connect to kids.”

Mr. Madaras said he would be working with the contacts he has, and with Kathleen Warner of Wilton who has been organizing a care package drive for Marines, to find new places to send the balls.

“I’m a little bit worried about going forward... because ESPN plans to run it on a weekend morning on SportsCenter,” and may run it on the program Outside the Lines. With more publicity, the drive will have to be ready to handle an expected influx of soccer balls.

“Everybody right now, I tell them ‘Just send them to my house,’” said Mr. Madaras.

And Kick for Nick is also able to accept monetary gifts as well, to help cover the cost of shipping. Mr. Madaras said Will Perez of Norwalk, father of Army Specialst Wilfredo Perez Jr., who died in service in July 2003, has a non-profit memorial fund and agreed to take in money for the Wilton drive.