Sacramento Kings: Willie Cauley-Stein Visits Young Fan

I usually don’t cover too much outside of the realm of the NBA, but this one is too cool to not write-up. Sacramento Kings rookie Willie Cauley-Stein visited a young Kentucky (and now Kings, most likely) fan in Cincinnati. The reason for the visit is the young fan, 11-year-old Toby Foster, is suffering from mitochondrial disease (for the whole story, and a little more on mitochondrial disease, check out the original story from Kentucky Sports Radio).

Toby was meant to head to Kentucky’s ProCamp on Saturday to see Cauley-Stein, who is his favorite player. Unfortunately he found himself too sick to attend that day. Unbeknownst to young Toby, Willie heard about his young superfan and made his way to Toby’s house after the camp was over to spend some time with the little guy.

Apparently the two spent quite a bit of time together, talking about Star Wars, superheros, and one particular dunk Cauley-Stein pulled off while at Kentucky that inspired Toby to stay strong despite the challenges he obviously faces every day. Here’s that section of the article (from Kentucky Sports Radio), but be warned the feels are pretty damn strong:

"They also talked about the amazing, fly- through-the-air dunk in Florida. Yeah, you know the one. The “Am I really seeing this? No way!” game-changing dunk. Toby told him about the note I wrote him with the picture of that dunk. Toby keeps it taped by his bed to remind him of his strength, and that anything is possible. I loved when Willie said, “Someone else took the wheel on that one.” Amen, Willie. We know the Someone. Later, Toby showed Willie it by his bed. Toby told Willie, “You’ve gotten me through some rough times when mito was gettin’ the best of me. That made me feel stronger.” Willie was so touched that he asked to take a picture of it."

Crying? Who, me? No, I just got something in my eye. Here, look at the dunk in question instead of at me:

Just to put this story over the top in terms of Cauley-Stein being ridiculously awesome, before he left he gave Toby his cell phone number, and the two have been exchanging text messages since he left. You hear a lot about the NBA doing great things for communities, but when a player goes out of his way like this it’s such a cool thing to see.

It’s clear that Willie Cauley-Stein is the exact type of player you want to draft and bring to your city, and despite his towering, somewhat imposing demeanor he’s a real sweetheart off of the court. I can’t wait to cover him in Sacramento for years to come, because I highly doubt this is the last time we’ll be gushing over something awesome Willie has done.

Thanks for keeping it Trill, Willie.

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