PARSIPPANY-TROY HILLS — During Friday evening, September 15, Vikings Varsity Football game ten-year old Sean Ries shook hands with the Chatham football team’s captains and flipped the coin to start the game. The Cougars called tails, won the toss, and elected to receive.
The Parsippany Hills varsity football team won the home conference game against Chatham by a score of 41-12.
Sean Ries, a 10-year-old from Mount Tabor who has a brain tumor, led the Parsippany Hills football team Friday in his black-and-blue No. 58 Little Vikings jersey.
The Parsippany Hills football players wore gold socks Friday night, with the cheerleaders in big gold hair bows. Some also had Gold Out T-shirts under their uniforms, the color occasionally visible around the black-and-blue. Many spectators in the stands wore a gold ribbon pinned to their shirts.
Parsippany Hills High School and the Little Vikings youth programs will be wearing something gold in all their games this fall.
Brenda Ries, Sean’s mom, founded the Children’s Brain Tumor Family Foundation in 2014 to fundraise for the Greenfield and Mark Souweidane’s research at the Weill Cornell Pediatric Brain and Spine Center. The foundation has awarded almost $200,000 to targeted research.
Little Vikings football team will hold its own Gold Out day on September 30, with proceeds going to the Morris County Youth Football League charity for families battling life-threatening illnesses.
Sean Reis is a 10 year-old Parsippany boy battling a rare form of brain cancer.
On February 6, 2012, at just four years old, Sean was diagnosed with a large dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumor (DNET) in the left side of his brain, and underwent his first of multiple surgeries the next day. Since then, Sean’s tumor has been in remission for several years, however his family recently learned that the battle is not yet over.
In May, Sean underwent his fourth brain surgery to remove the new tumor that was discovered in February, and since recovering from that, has spent his summer undergoing daily radiation treatment.
Brenda Reis, Sean’s mother said “We are so grateful for the support we receive from our amazing “little” town of Parsippany.”
