Courage Bowl Partnership Featured on D3Football.com
Andrew Lovell
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Gary Mervis was driving to the St. John Fisher campus one fall day about 10 years ago.
He couldn't get over the weather -- not a cloud to be found in the Western New York sky. As he took in the sun while stopped at a red light, he heard a woman's voice in the car next to him. It was a mother, urging her young son to stop throwing a football around the family van.
That's when the idea hit him.
Mervis was on his way to St. John Fisher from one of the offices for Camp Good Days and Special Times, a non-profit organization "dedicated to improving the quality of life for children, adults and families whose lives have been touched by cancer." Mervis founded the initiative in 1979 after his 9-year-old daughter, Teddi Mervis, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.
Mervis' idea was simple enough -- give the kids of Camp Good Days a chance to experience something new, and to fulfill a dream they might never have another opportunity to. He wanted St. John Fisher and, at the time, Rochester to play a football game that meant more than just a win or loss.
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