ALS Challenge Hits Home For Conque Family
8/21/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - Stephen F. Austin head football coach Clint Conque received what hopefully will be the first of many post-game ice bucket baths following SFA's scrimmage Wednesday night, but few will mean as much as the first.
Conque, responding to a challenge from a number of his football players, including his son Zach Conque, accepted the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge - a phenomenon that is sweeping across the world in an effort to raise awareness and funds for ALS. For Conque and his family, this effort is one that hits very close to home.
"My uncle, who also happens to be my godfather, passed away right before camp started from ALS," Conque revealed. "It went fast. Henry N. Pitre, Jr. - we call him H.N. H.N. was diagnosed about a year and a half ago and passed away right before we started camp. It's a disease that has affected a lot of us - a lot of our players and families, and this one hit pretty close to home, being not even a month ago for me."
Conque received the ice bath following SFA's final fall scrimmage, calling out the rest of the Southland Conference head football coaches in the process.
In addition, Conque announced that he and his family would be making a significant donation to the University of Arkansas Medical School in Little Rock in honor of his late uncle.
Most famously known as "Lou Gehrig's disease," amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body.
The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.
"He was such an active, vibrant man at 77 years old - much more fit than I am at this point, and to see what that disease can do is tragic," Conque said. "So hopefully we can generate some more interest and money and find a cure for this terrible disease."
To participate in an ice bucket challenge of your own, as well as to make a donation to the cause, visit ALSA.org. To date, the worldwide challenge has helped raise nearly $23 million to help find a cure.
-SFA-
