It's @NickRimando on #RSL Latest, Rafa Cabral, HopeForKiri.Org + more

Were nineteen days away from Utah and Ucla. Ironically enough, speaking of Ucla, we have a former Bruin.

On the show.

You guys know him as the Wall of the Wassatch the Goat Hall of Famer Nick Romondo. Monday Afternoon, Nikki, Happy Monday, Man.

How you doing?

That's what's going on? Doing great? Doing great?

How are you doing?

Man?

Good buddy, I appreciate your time. Do you stay connected to UCLA at all? Are you a basketball football fan? You stay connected your alma mater.

I mean, I wouldn't say stay connected connected, but I'm definitely looking at the score, seeing how they're doing. Obviously, my son's a big hooper, so we pay attention to the basketball team more so, but always love when the Bruins win.

Wait, your boys, your boys a basketball player? Huh.

Yeah, he's a big hooper. That's his sport. I mean, obviously, you know he loves soccer and he plays for his high school, but his main sport is basketball. So going into a senior year at East and it's really been fun to watch him and grow in the in the and see how happy he is on the court. And yeah, I'm just really looking forward to the senior the year.

I can't believe that that kid's a senior.

I remember him running around following you when you were playing for RSL back in the day.

He's a senior. That's wild, Nick.

Don't blink your eyes. I know, man, my daughter's going to be a sophomore. My son's a senior. So yeah, I'm in it. This is a fun time for me.

That's amazing.

Hey, I wanted to start out with your thoughts on watching Rafa Cabral this year. You know, during the league's cup run, there was a little Now, I this is kind of sacrilege because you did this at a high level for a number of years and you guys lifted a cup, but there was a little Romando field to kind of the way. He was stepping up in big moments during pks and he's the only player on the team that has played every minute this year.

What what?

What?

What are your thoughts watching Cabral play for RSL this year exceeded expectations.

I am a big, big fan of Rafa. He showed up not only in the field. You guys don't see all this stuff. You know that I see, you know the training ground and you know in the locker room at the gym. He's a real leader of the squad. He's obviously putting the work on the field, showing up making the big says, like you said in that first game against Club America, coming up big in the PK shootout, but just his presence back there, his calmness to the

Obviously the result didn't go to the club's way yesterday, but overall the form has been so much better, Nick, I think they're you know, they have two losses in the last eleven you know, some draws here there, and of course that does include the league's cup run. But a nice win over Club America, one of the powerhouse clubs in this region kind of felt like a road game in a way. But why do you think the club has turned it around? What do you most attribute the better form too?

I think it's sometimes it takes a little time to get on the same page Obviously it's later in the season now, but guys are finding their rhythm. Guys are performing, you know better now, and you know, obviously Diego's having a highlight year and the confidence that kid has is unmatched. And you know, hopefully, you know, this weekend and Charlotte we get a three point to get back into that

Tell me how it's been for you to witness this rise for Diego and as somebody who wants upon a time kind of had a similar rise, you know, through Gold Cup run and then you solidified a spot with the national team and you played in a World Cup, and you know, it's been fun to kind of watch people around the country notice what we've seen from him over the past couple of years. But what stands out most about the way he's risen up this year, Nicky.

For me, he's got that dogman. He's out there fighting, he said in the press. He's scoring goals, He's doing it on both sides of the ball on the pitch, and he's just he's a fan favorite. You could see. You'll turn on social media or the TV, everybody's talking about the kid. And he's just doing it, going out there and doing what he's done for, you know, for so so long, and uh, just really proud of him. I'm glad he's getting the spotlight and it's It's just

I also wanted to get your thoughts on Gozo, a player who I knew nothing about prior to the start of the season, and I had Pablo on I think it was after the first goal that Gozo scored and before you actually tallyed a goal, he was dangerous for another through a number of games, and I said to Pablo, I'm like, I think he got something with his kid local, which is always fun West Valley kid. He gets his third goal over the weekend, if he continues to work, stay healthy, what.

Does he look like when he's fully formed? In your opinion, yeah, he's he's Listen.

We had him last year with the Monarchs. Did his time there, Uh fall him in the you know how to not with the academy. Like you said, local kids, he always always root for them. But Gozo can stretch the defense. He could, he could run for days, he could, he could start the press and he's always done that. Now seeing him doing that at the highest level is even more special for me to watch. And again he's bagging goals now, so his confidences continue to go up.

Have you had a chance to watch Rowan Cruz And I'm not sure where we're at with the Yolatunji kid. I know they're working on his work visa, but two big time additions in the attack during the transfer window, Nick, what what sort of info can you share with us?

No?

Yeah, I haven't seen much of him just when he comes on at the game. Obviously he hasn't started yet, but uh, he's a big presence up there. He's very technical and I think once he starts backing some goals, like any forward, you'll get your confidence, and it takes time, right, you can't just expect you know, players to come in and make it impact all the time. And it takes time to know your your teammates, to flow to flow how we play, get use of the league, who you're

So ultimately, as a result of the loss over the weekends and some uh some games that didn't go RSL's way, the team is now back below the playoff line with a handful of games left. So if I ask, and I know you're RSL optimistic, I know you always look on the bright side. But if we can get these two strikers or these two attacking players kind of ingrained in what Pablo wants them to do, what's best case scenario for the rest of the season, how do you think it could look?

Yeah?

I think I think we're going to make the playoffs the way you know Pablo has this team going right now and training and fighting. It was unlucky this this last game. Obviously you wanted three and Saren it would have been great for us, but you just got to keep your head down, keep working. I'm very optimist in it, and I think I think we're going to be in the playoffs come come the end of the year and hopefully make a good run of the playoffs.

All right, Nick, is today your pickleball tournament?

Is it?

The Rise Pickball Tournament? Is that today?

Yes?

It is second annual Rice Charity Classic, So, uh, pick a ball tournament today at second Summit cider festivities and games start at five with the tournament starting at six. It's a huge day. We did it last year. We got a you know, a lot of people that attended, a lot of you know, good words from from people, and and we had to do it again. And yeah, this Rise at Rise Athletics Foundation. What we do is try to make soccer more a sensible in a community.

All right, before I say you lose, Let's move over to a story that is kind of permeated throughout our community. I've seen it a lot on the news and social media. It is heart wrenching.

Man.

He's three years old.

Carrie's three years old, and we're looking for a bone marrow transplant. So what do you want our listeners to know?

Nick?

How can they help?

Yeah?

Yeah, no, we caught hold of this story and we're gonna have a table there at second. Some insider. Carrie is a three and a half year old member of our community. He was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive brain disorder called sleebro ald. He is in urgent need of a bone marrow transplant due to this aggressive nature of the disease. We need to find a donor match for Carrie in a short period of time, so we all

This cost, the cost of medical care is and will continue to be significant. Medical bills are already piling up. The family has set up a goal fundmeed for Kirie's care. So, if you are, if you are, multiple ways to get there are multiple ways to get involved and show up for this young boy and his family who are already going through so much.

So again, if if you have the time, if you haven't already, if you're the between the ages of eighteen and forty, please come out, get swabbed, come out to the event.

There.

There'll be some great raffle prizes and some fun times there. But more importantly, I think we want to, you know, find this kidd cure.

More information and links to the go fundme and Carrie's journey can be found at the website Hope for Kirie dot org. Nick, thanks for the time, buddy, and have a great event tonight.

Okay, Kay, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Okay again, Hope for Kiri dot org. You may have seen this story circulating on social media. A bunch of our local news outlets have covered it as well. A beautiful little kid man, He's three and a half years old. You pull up this website and it tugs at your heart string. So you can head to the website Hope for Kiri dot org and there are links for the GoFundMe that you can donate. You can join the donor registry and then they have locations where you can go

You can play some pickleball.

And while you're there, if you're between the ages of eighteen and forty, just take a couple of minutes get swabbed and maybe you can save this kid's life.

I mean three and a half years old.

Man, So Hope for Kiri dot org and let's bring in Tony to tell us more about this.

Tony, how are you, sir?

Hey s Ben some great? How are you man? Thanks for having me?

I'm really I'm good man.

And my heart's aching as I'm looking at these pictures of this young man three and a half years old.

I can't even imagine.

So tell us about this journey, Tony, what's this been like for you?

And how can we help?

Yeah, So Kiri has been diagnosed with cerebral ALD. It's a manifestation of his original diagnosis of adreno lukodystrophe or ALD for short. It was discovered in his newborn screening and since then he goes to biannual checkups and imaging to make sure that the disease hasn't progressed to this cerebral ALD. On July twenty third, we went to one of his routine MRI images and unfortunately, later that day we got the worst news that they found that they

Well Tony a lot of things and including the many things I am as a father. So my heart goes out to you. How you doing, man? How's the family doing throughout this process.

We're you know, we're doing really well. We've, like I mentioned, the support from the community and the love that we feel. I mean, there's total strangers out there running events to get swabs for Kirie. It's just been so powerful and so impactful for us. And you know, we're doing good. We told our kids that Kirie's going to go to the hospital for a while, and you know, he's just such a sweet kid. His first concern was, am I

How's mom doing.

She's doing good. She's a doer. Her and her family have just been amazing. I took a second to process everything, but they jumped right into action and this huge campaign is it is a result of them. So we're really lucky.

So we've got Nikki's pickleball tournament tonight and there will be kits there where people can go get swab.

Is that true?

Yep, that's correct. We'll have a table set up. We have about one hundred and fifty kits. I'll be there with a couple more volunt gracious volunteers, and we have a pre registration. If you text six one four seven four, that's six four seven four, you text Hope for Kiri to that you can actually get sent the pre registration screening so you'll know if you're eligible. Save you some time to come down, but we'd love to see you come down. Support Rise Athletics in the community, and yeah,

Hey, Hope for Kirie dot org is the website.

There's a link to the go fundme and there's a link to join the Donna registry. So let me ask you this. Twenty four listeners that can't make it to Nikki's even tonight. Are there other locations they can go to? Is the website the best place to go to get more information?

Go ahead?

Yeah, thank you for the reminder. The website that Hopefkirie dot org has all of the links for the Bone Mirror registry to go fund me, all of that stuff, and it has a list of all of the amazing businesses that have graciously signed up to have test kits. We update that every night at like seven pm. So what you see on there right now is the most up to date information that we have about who still

All right, Tony, Well, we'll continue to push this out, man, and if you need anything from us, you just got to reach out.

This is the important stuff.

We talked about football and basketball and soccer, but this this is the important stuff. And you know, if we can do anything to help you out and rally the community, please reach out. Best of luck, and my heart goes out to you and that little boy.

Okay, thank you very much, Bence, Thanks so much for the time I really appreciate it.

You got it.

So the website again is Hope Forkirie dot org. Nick Romando's charity pickleball tournament tonight. Will have a bunch of kits. They're present for you guys to go get swabed. Looking potentially between the ages of eighteen and forty.

And as a result of.

The nature of both the backgrounds of the mother and the father, if you have Italian or Asian blood, you're more likely to be a match. Unfortunately, Carrie's two siblings were not a match for him. He is three and a half years old. And this is heartbreaking because they're running out of time. That's what it comes down to. It's cerebral or cerebral ald devastating, an aggressive brain disease, and we're looking to find a bone marrow donor in a match to try to save this kid's life.

So they're running out of time.

And again Hope Forkirie dot org Nick Romando's Pickleball Tournament tonight. And as Tony just referenced, Tony is is is Carrie's father?

Uh?

Text right now six one four seven four, Text Hope for Kirie to six one four seven four and they will text you a pre screening just kind of something you have to fill out before you actually get screened, like a pre screening document that you fill out before

Save a life.

Let's see if we can get this kid a bone marrow transplant so we can watch him grow as opposed to the other you know, possibility at the age

Of three and a half, which I don't really even want to wrap my mind around.