On July 25, Saints P Thomas Morstead and his gridiron brethren will report to training camp to begin working toward their goal of winning Super Bowl LIII. On Monday, Morstead used one of his last days off to help a member of the Saints family who has been battling cancer since 2015.
Christopher Cordaro was working as a sales executive for the Saints when he was diagnosed with neuroendocrine carcinoma in the pancreas, liver, bone, spine, scalp and multiple lymph nodes.
"I met him a number of times and just figured I'd go visit him in the hospital. He had a really bad diagnosis -- I think he had two or three months to live, three years ago," Morstead told NewOrleansSaints.com. "Call it what you want; I call it a miracle."
Unfortunately, Cordaro's cancer returned, but his fight has inspired Morstead.
"When you just see somebody handling something so adverse in such an awesome way, that was kind of the pull to want to do something," said Morstead.
The veteran punter decided to use his platform to raise over $70,000 in school funds for Cordaro's children. Morstead set a goal of 400 pull-ups in an hour. Thousands tuned into Morstead's live stream as he completed 418 pull-ups and members of the Saints organization including owner Gayle Benson, head coach Sean Payton, and several players came by to offer support.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Morstead's fundraiser has $72,000 and continues to grow. The punter is familiar with using social media to help others, back in January he raised over $200K for children battling cancer.
If you'd like to contribute to Morstead's latest cause, his fundraiser for the Cordaro family will be up on What You Give Will Grow for the next three days.
