Saquon Barkley provides experience of a lifetime for fan at youth camp

Saquon Barkley held a youth camp earlier this month in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and provided an experience for one of the attendees that his mother described as life-altering.

It all started when Nikki Ash of Exton, Pennsylvania, saw the advertisement for Barkley's camp on Facebook and reached out to see if the hosting company, FlexWork Sports, might be open to including her son, Mikey.

What better way to celebrate Mikey's 21st birthday than to gift the avid Penn State and Philadelphia Eagles fan the chance to meet his favorite player?

The only caveats were that Mikey wasn't a match for the age requirement (6-16 years old) and wouldn't be able to participate in much of the on-field work due to a rare genetic disorder called Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome, which has been with him since birth and has impacted nearly every system in his body. He often needs to use a wheelchair and requires nurse accompaniment around the clock when he is not in the hospital.

"He's had more surgeries than birthdays," Nikki said.

FlexWork welcomed the family in and helped coordinate a special interaction between Mikey and Barkley.

When Barkley rotated over to Mikey's group, he laid out the game plan to the kids: He'd hand the ball to Mikey as the rest of them cheered and blocked for him on the way to the end zone.

"When Saquon said, 'Mikey, do you want to score a touchdown?' Mikey leapt up out of his chair and Saquon took him by his hand," Ash said. "And he made all the kids chant his name and encouraged them to give Mikey high-fives and make him feel like he really was an MVP.

"I can't even put into words what it meant to my son, what it meant to me, the emotions, it was beyond what we ever expected. I was going there thinking we would go there and sit on the sidelines and hope and pray we at least got to see Saquon, but we never thought we'd actually get to play something with him. It gave him this opportunity to grow and participate and truly shine."

Once the moment had passed and the cameras stopped filming, Barkley went over to Ash and said, "Good job, Mom. He's my hero."

"I think I cried like a baby at that moment, thinking, you have no idea how much of a hero you are to us, more than ever," Ash said.

Mikey needed to go back to the hospital not long after his time at the Barkley camp and, according to Ash, showed the video to his nurses the moment he entered. He talked about the friends that he made and how he held a football -- something they were once told Mikey would never be strong enough to do.

"Even his physical therapist is like, 'Is that all we need is Saquon Barkley to say, 'Mikey, want to [play] football?' He can't even walk through a grocery store and he ran up the field. He spiked a football," Ash said. "For a moment, our world was normal."

The family has watched the video countless times since.

Ash expressed gratitude for Mikey to have "something so happy happen to him on a good day." Physical complications often force them to cancel their plans, but there were none that day. He didn't need oxygen or a feeding tube.

And before he even had a chance to meet Barkley, he was uplifted by other kids in attendance who volunteered to push Mikey around in his wheelchair or help him participate in the football drills.

"He made all these new friends all because of a football camp which is something we would have never taken him to if they didn't allow inclusion. That's such a wonderful thing. They opened up a whole new world, and memories, and we live on memories," Ash said.

"I couldn't love Saquon more than what I do. He just exceeded what I already thought he was. He's just amazing. For somebody to take the time to do this and give Mikey this experience. ... It changed our world. It changed him."

Mikey has made it to a Nittany Lions game but never to an Eagles game. Both times they had tickets, his health prevented them from going.

They are as committed as ever to making it to Lincoln Financial Field this year.

"I'm worried that he thinks he's going to go out on the field with Saquon now because he thinks he's a football player," Ash said. "He is all about it.

"We spend a lot of our lives on the sideline, and Saquon called us in. For that, I will forever be grateful for him. He has two loyal followers to the end. I hope this gets back to him so he knows how much it's impacted Mikey's life and how much it meant to his mom."br/]