At its best, sports gives back

BY JOE FAVORITO

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

COMMENTARY

Many people may now know what UNICO is, but millions have been touched by their support. The largest national Italian-American service organization with a large presence in New Jersey, the group spends countless hours fundraising thousands of dollars community by community for charities ranging from help for the elderly to cancer and life threatening disease research.

Through all their work, the common theme of sports continually arises, and Friday in Hershey, Pa. UNICO held its annual sports lunch, honoring longtime New York Giant and Philadelphia Eagle Sean Landeta with its Vincent T. Lombardi Award, given each year to a prominent professional Italian-American athlete who gives back to the community and helps grow awareness for heritage and culture.

While it is great that Landeta has joined the ranks of others like Joe Torre, Tom Lasorda and Yogi Berra, what is even more impressive is the work the organization does with an award named after another legendary Italian-American athlete, the late Brian Piccolo, to raise money for cancer research and award scholarships to young student-athletes across the country for their work both on the field and in the classroom.

On Friday, Kristi Piccolo, an accomplished businesswoman and mother, and the daughter of the late Chicago Bears running back who died of a rare form of cancer in the prime of his career, spoke to the full room at the Hershey Lodge about the value of sports and the ways that her father's legacy has been carried on through the work of UNICO and other charities in her native Chicago.

The moving speech once again showed that ways that sports as a link for social change can move the needle in a positive way with regard to awareness and assistance to those both deserving or reward and those less fortunate. Also on hand for the lunch was Nick Valvano of the V Foundation, the charity created in memory of the late Jim Valvano that has also raised millions for cancer research through sport. (The V Foundation is another beneficiary of UNICO's work).

While both are individual examples of the positive aspects of what sport can do, they are certainly not to be taken lightly. The great benefit of sport is that games and events on the highest level inspire and provide relief from the everyday that all experience. The great detraction is that those who play and work at the highest level are constantly held to the highest elements of public scrutiny. In today's 24/7 world we see and hear of their falls much more than their successes off the field, but in many ways those success stories can have a much greater impact than what is done on the field.

The legacy awards that UNICO has created are great examples of what good sport can do, and what brands that are looking to attach themselves to positive stories can experience and grow with. When they were on the gridiron or the court, neither Piccolo, Valvano or Lombardi probably ever thought about legacy ... their goal was success and winning. However through the efforts of those off the field, their legacy, and the lives they have touched, have surpassed their professional accomplishments a million times and will continue to do so.

Yes we do get caught up in the business and hoopla of sport. But once in a while, and one of those days was Friday, it is important to pause and see the real impact of the games that are played, through the eyes of those who have benefited in money's raised or homes built or disease eradicated. That is a sports legacy worth following.

Joe Favorito has over 23 years of strategic communications/marketing, business development and public relations expertise in sports, entertainment, brand building, media training, television, athletic administration and business. Visit him at JoeFavorito.com.