A firm foundation for kids

Talk with Mark Rypien and it’s easy to see how much he’s received from Spokane.

He talks about his childhood with a graceful ease that belies his 6-foot-4, 240-pound former-NFL quarterback body.

He talks of what Spokane gave him and his family, the grounding he received on the streets and playfields of the North Side, the way the city and what it represented called him back from the East.

But it’s not a one-way street.

It’s his love for his hometown and the loss of a loved one that’s driving Rypien’s newest charitable effort, an effort that comes about because he “wanted to do something that was specific to Spokane.”

Last April, Rypien and some of his Spokane friends founded the Mark Rypien Foundation, a non-profit fund-raising organization with, at its core, the stated goal of helping families whose young ones are battling cancer.

Just like Rypien and his family did six years ago.

Mark and then-wife Annette lost their son Andrew to brain cancer. The youngest Rypien was just 3 when he died at home, and the hurt still shows in Mark’s eyes when Andrew’s name comes up.

“In our situation, with Annette and I having lost (our son, and daughters) Ambre and Angie having lost a brother … to a brain tumor years ago, we also know what it is like to have to deal with cancer,” Rypien said recently.

“We have been there, we know that side of it. We also know that no parent of a family should ever have to go through stuff like this, but it is going to happen.

“If we can improve the quality of stay for children and their families that’s our No. 1 goal.”

But not the only goal. The Mark Rypien Foundation also wants to help kids with cancer attend Camp Goodtimes, the American Cancer Society’s recreational opportunity held each summer at Camp Reed on Fan Lake north of Spokane.

“You take children that are going through chemotherapy, radiation, whatever it may be,” Rypien said, “take them out to Camp Reed, where they can bring a friend or a sibling and they can just be a child. They can be in an environment where they are having fun, just as other kids are having fun.”

Rypien, 42, knows when he and his family were going through Andrew’s battle, they were blessed financially with adequate insurance and support. He also knows that’s not the case for many in Spokane.

“We didn’t have to worry about the financial problems that parents and families go through and we could see the stress it has on families,” Rypien said, looking back at the experience. “I just believe wholeheartedly in our objectives and what we are doing.”

The other goal, one that Rypien sees as a down-the-road opportunity, is to help fund local cancer research.

All these goals take hard work, perseverance and, of course, money.

The first two Rypien and the MRF board are already providing. The third is the next step.

“People here in this area are very willing to give,” Rypien said. “That’s the thing you find out if you go out and ask and announce something that has some validity to it, people are going to jump aboard.”

Raising funds for the MRF isn’t Rypien’s only activity right now. Far from it.

And most of his activities show his ties to his past and to the area.

There’s his work with Fox Sports Northwest, supplying analysis for the Washington State University football games that are shown regionally on the cable network. Of course it was in Pullman where Rypien first hit the national scene as the Cougars’ quarterback, where he was a first-team All-Pac-10 selection and an All-American.

He spends time when he can working with the quarterbacks at his prep alma mater, Shadle Park, where he was a three-sport letterman, including leading the school to a state basketball title.

And he’s always willing to help with charitable fund raising, estimating he’s done hundreds of events since his days with the Washington Redskins, where he was a two-time All-Pro and the Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl XXVI in 1992.

It was those Washington, D.C.-area charitable appearances and golf tournaments that planted the seeds for the MRF, according to Rypien.

“They were all great events and the charities all did good works, but you just didn’t get to see the tangible results of the money,” Rypien said. “Here we can actually see who it is going to affect in a positive way. We can see what is needed and what we can do to help.

“We wanted to be involved in all aspects of it, from raising money on. We are just looking at this as a great opportunity for us to do something locally here and with our hospitals in the Spokane area that deal specifically with children.”

And Spokane is responding to Rypien, as it has done for more than 25 years.

“We’ve been so overwhelmed,” Rypien said of the response to the foundation. ” ‘No’ has not been a word that’s come up in our conversations with people.”

“Ten years from now when not a lot of people know who the heck Mark Rypien was,” he said, “the legacy of what happened to myself, my family and Andrew, will still have merit because of this foundation and the people we are going to help.

“Those will be the voices that will be heard.”