NFL draft parties get fancier every year. And for good reason. Every fan hopes that the annual April cue card reading will turn their team into a Super Bowl contender.
If fans throw that kind of Mardi Gras for football players who may or may not pan out, what kind of party does a disease researcher warrant?
On Feb. 4, Uplifting Athletes gave some of those investigators an appropriate party at Lincoln Financial Field.
“The Young Investigator Draft drafts researchers that we think will have an impact in developing treatments and cures for rare diseases. The goal was to take the Young Investigator Draft to another level, to make it fun and exciting,” explained Uplifting Athletes General Manager Brett Brackett. Mission accomplished as at the Linc, the recipients of the $20,000 grants were given the same fanfare and accompanying media presentation as a first-round draft pick would.
Previously, grant awards were communicated in an email. “The only people who could celebrate that were the people who opened the email behind the computer,” Brackett noted. “What these people are doing are absolutely incredible.”
Uplifting Athletes’ mission is to “harness the power of sport to build a community that invests in the lives of people impacted by rare diseases.” Over the last six years, Uplifting Athletes has awarded over $800,000 to 44 specific rare disease research projects. Two recipients have earned additional funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Uplifting Athletes is committed to a long-term balance of funding each of the five NIH rare disease classifications: Genetic Disorders, Muscular and Neurological Disorders, Blood Disorders, Cancers, and Autoimmune and Immunological Disorders.
New Hope’s Brackett, a former Penn State captain and Tennessee Titan, served as president of the Nittany Lions’ Uplifting Athletes chapter during his undergraduate years. Penn State is where Brackett also met his wife, Jamie, who graduated from and taught elementary school in the Central Bucks district.
“When I was in college, a woman wrote a letter to the team on how a rare disease diagnosis changed her life and how the Penn State football team reshaped her perspective while she was going through a tough time,” Brackett recalled. “Knowing that we had that much of a profound impact on her in a challenging time proved that whatever I can do with the platform I was given, I wanted to help people as much as I could with it. When I was playing in the NFL, I rarely said no to anything.”
One of New Jersey’s top prep quarterbacks, freshman Brackett was asked by Penn State to mimic Notre Dame All-American wide receiver Jeff Samardzija on the scout team as both were 6-foot-5. “I ran as scout team receiver and had a much better week than anyone anticipated,” Brackett shared.
For the rest of his Nittany Lion career, Brackett played receiver. He caught three passes in the Rose Bowl as a sophomore, and grabbed five touchdown catches in his senior year. He also picked up two degrees – in marketing and economics.
“I didn’t play the same position at any level. To get to the NFL, I was told my best chance was to put on more weight and play tight end,” Brackett said. He signed with the Miami Dolphins as an unrestricted free agent in July 2011. Brackett also spent time with the Philadelphia Eagles, Jacksonville Jaguars and Arizona Cardinals organizations.
He had several strong preseasons: eight catches, including two touchdowns for the 2012 Eagles and five catches for 69 yards for the 2014 Dolphins. Yet fill in the blank: season-ending injuries, being the odd man out, a coach that wanted X from his tight end when Brackett was stronger in Y, kept him from converting those strong showings into an active roster spot.
Brackett persevered, and it paid off on a humid Oct. 12, 2014 day in Nashville when he made his NFL debut for the Tennessee Titans. Brackett appeared in seven games for the Titans, and one for the Seattle Seahawks that season.
“It was the same game I was playing as a kid having fun in the yard. It was something I really loved to do. I loved the training, the working out and the camaraderie,” Brackett shared. “I loved working with my teammates to achieve a common goal. Those were things that were core to me that can translate into other things. Football happened to be an outlet for those things that are a big part of my personality. I happened to have physical talent that God blessed me with that I could use in that way.”
In 2018, Brackett and Executive Director Rob Long assumed the leadership of Uplifting Athletes. Besides the draft, the organization invests in college athletics programs to “teach athletes about the rare disease community and empower them with the tools and awareness to raise money to help people impacted by rare diseases,” Brackett explained. The organization also sponsors Uplifting Experiences, which has connected hundreds of rare disease patients with athletes in some unique and special formats.
A rare disease – and there are roughly 10,000 – is defined as impacting under 200,000 Americans. “It’s a very divided community because each specific disease state is going to be fighting for their own needs,” Brackett said. “We’re looking for opportunities to unify and move the community along as a whole in the way we fund research.”
Uplifting Athletes knows that their grants may not pay dividends for 10 or 20 years. But Brackett has always been a uniter and a builder. Now, he uses his platform to build out a community to come together to fight rare diseases.
“It’s about doing things in community. That’s one of the things I really like about settling in Bucks County,” he concluded. “There are some really great people who we’ve been able to build friendships with just like in the locker room when I was playing. It’s continued in life.”
To learn more about Uplifting Athletes, visit https://www.upliftingathletes.org.
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