May 11, 2006

People dream of making a difference.

Student-athletes are no different.

They dream of scoring the big goal, making the big save and, of course, winning championships.

Only a select few, however, get to experience that "One Shining Moment" where the spotlight shines on them.

Georgetown University men's lacrosse player Rob Lemos (Camillus, N.Y./West Genesee), like anyone else, has dreams.

One of 14 seniors on the fifth-ranked Hoya lacrosse team, Lemos is just over a week away from earning a degree in international politics from the School of Foreign Service and is a key player on a team that has hopes of winning an NCAA Championship.

While he is getting his resume ready for prospective employers and gearing up for the NCAA Tournament, Lemos is working on another dream. It's called "Hoya Dreams."

"Hoya Dreams" is a project he hopes will not only enrich the lives of Georgetown student-athletes, but especially those of young children at the University Hospital.

After spending an afternoon during the fall at the Georgetown University Hospital Pediatrics Wing, Lemos had an idea.

He and his teammates had visited with kids who were in the hospital's Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). It's something that previous Hoya men's lacrosse teams had done, but after this visit, the switched turned on for Lemos.

"They were having a reunion of the kids who went through the unit," Lemos explained. "This had been set up for us before and I remembered doing it when I was a freshman.

"When I was up there, I met some people from the hospital and I got the idea."

One of the people he met at the hospital, Nancy Tran, the Director of Annual Giving for the hospital, called him afterward and wanted to send a thank you card for organizing the visit. Lemos mentioned his idea to Tran and she said it sounded like something they could pursue.

In an effort to get to know the sport of lacrosse, she visited the website for Inside Lacrosse, the premier magazine covering the sport. There, she saw a story about a University of North Carolina lacrosse player, Dave Werry, who was doing something similar to what Lemos wanted to do.

Tran forwarded the story to Lemos and he contacted Werry to see how he got his program afloat. Both student-athletes had pretty similar thoughts on how they could see the program developing. Lemos corresponded with Werry via e-mail about aspects of the program at UNC and began putting things in place.

"I think it took them a day to get started (after she sent them the story)," Tran said. "I was very impressed with how quickly they went forward with the idea."

He first started by taking the name "Hoya Dreams" from Werry's program, called "Carolina Dreams." Werry, who started the Carolina program to honor his late father, told Lemos to "keep it simple and make it easy." Hoya Dreams will partner Georgetown student-athletes with children treated at Georgetown University Hospital Pediatrics. The program that Lemos is starting has two goals. First, to bring children treated there to the campus so they can spend an afternoon with student-athletes and attend an athletic event. The second is to have student-athletes visit current patients on a bi-weekly basis to provide motivation and support during their hospital stay.

The first goal, which Lemos is tentatively calling "Dream Days," will bring children between the ages of 6 and 17 who were treated or are undergoing treatment at the hospital to the campus. Children and their parents from the greater Washington, D.C. area are welcome to participate. While on campus, the children can watch a game, eat a meal with student-athletes, tour the campus and athletic facilities, have an opportunity to be on the field during or after the game and receive a t-shirt and get their picture taken to remind them of their visit.

The other portion, tentatively being called "Hoya Visits," will bring Georgetown student-athletes from various teams to the hospital. They would be paired up with current patients and spend time with them in their rooms to provide emotional support and motivation to complete their treatment. Prior to Easter, Lemos worked with Tran and arranged for the Hoya team to visit for an Easter egg hunt at the hospital. About 40 members of the team, in shifts of 10 for at least an hour, spent the morning and early afternoon hours on a day off setting up for the hunt. The players hid Easter eggs, decorated cookies and took part in face-painting on a day that was fun for everyone involved.

"We sat with these kids and just hung out," junior midfielder Christiaan Trunz (Manhasset, N.Y./Chaminade) said. "You really get a chance to see how fortunate you are, especially being at Georgetown and playing lacrosse. For a lot of guys, we're crying about running a mile and these kids are in the hospital."

For Trunz, a visit to the hospital has special meaning. Trunz lost his mother, Geraldine, to ovarian cancer earlier this year. "It was tough, it was tough for me personally," Trunz said. "I have a really soft spot for kids. That's why, for me, I take the chance (to visit) right away. For a lot of guys, this puts things face-to-face. You can hear about these diseases, but you can't really know it until you see it. It was a great experience."

That was the first real organized event for Hoya Dreams. Since then, Lemos and some of his teammates, as well as student-athletes from other teams at Georgetown, have gone up for additional visits. On top of the visits to the hospital, Lemos helped organize a fund-raiser during the team's last regular season home game - on April 22 against UMass. In the course of just a few days, he and his teammates encouraged kids from the hospital to come to the game (an 8-6 win) and they were able to raise $700, all of which went to the Child-Life Program.

"We are very thankful for the fund-raising efforts of the lacrosse team," said Linda Jung, the Director of Annual Giving for the Georgetown University Hospital Office of Philanthropy. "The money will be used for various events on the floor, party materials, arts and crafts supplies, video games, anything else that the children can benefit from while they are here."

In the meantime, Lemos and junior teammate, Dave Bauer (Red Bank, N.J./The Peddie School), who will oversee the program next year, set up meetings. They presented the idea to the GU athletic department, then met with all of the coaches and with hospital personnel, including Dr. David B. Nelson, the Chair of Pediatrics Department, Dr. Gabriel Hauser, the Vice Chairman of Pediatrics, Timothy Mooney, Administrator, Kids Mobile Medical Unit and Linda Jung from the Child Life program.

"I think it's a great chance to give back," Lemos said. "Being a student-athlete at Georgetown, I feel privileged and so are my teammates. Just to see them smile, it's a pretty neat feeling. It's a very humbling experience."

It's an experience that Lemos knows he probably won't see come to fruition because he is graduating, but he is still working hard to get the program started. So when he could have been coasting through the second semester of his senior year, Lemos, along with Bauer, was working on plans for Hoya Dreams.

"I've put some time in every day on it," he said, "whether it's just writing down some ideas or talking to Dave about it. It's something that's become really important to me."

Lemos also knows that it's a program that can also be beneficial for the student-athletes, enabling them to become better role models. "I just want to make it easier for student-athletes to volunteer," he said. "Sometimes we feel burdened by all that we have to do, but I'm hoping that by setting this up, and seeing the kids, it will give us a different perspective."

And in just a short time, it's already given the kids a different perspective.

"After every party, they express how much fun they have had, just having someone spend time with them," Tran said. "They're just happy to have some type of role model. It's nice to have someone care about them, to ask how they're doing, to make sure they're having a good time."

And while Lemos knows that it's not easy to visit sick children in a hospital, having done it already, he knows the effect it can have. "I think the easiest thing to do is just not do anything," he said. "I'm a bit uncomfortable, especially when a kid is leaning on an IV. People like me that don't have first hand knowledge of suffering day-in and day-out, but when you get up there and start hanging out, you realize they're just kids. They're the same as you."

And that's what impacted him the most on the visits he and his teammates have made this semester.

"I was really anxious," he said. "I wasn't sure of the reaction, but everyone who's gone up has really enjoyed it."

"I think the enthusiasm has been equal, both from our end at the hospital, but also from the student-athlete's perspective," Tran said. "I think because of that, and the commitment these guys have shown, it should be something that will really make it worthwhile for everyone."

Now, with the semester winding down and the ideas in place, Lemos is confident that his fellow Hoyas will be able to take part next year.

"I think when you see how much happiness it can bring, it keeps you going back for more," Lemos said. "It's almost addictive. The smile of a child just brightens your day, no matter how bad you may think your day is."

If you would like to make a charitable contribution to the Hoya Dreams program, please contact the GUH Office of Philanthropy at 202-444-9884, or via email at philanthropy@gunet.georgetown.edu .