NFL star Chris Draft keeps pledge to late wife by taking cancer patients to Wembley game

Tribute: the former NFL star formed a charity with his wife Keasha Rutledge Draft to support patients and raise awareness of the dangers of lung cancer. She had never smoked
Ross Lydall @RossLydall28 October 2016

An American Football player will this weekend honour a wedding-day pledge to his late wife when he takes two cancer patients to a showpiece NFL game at Wembley Stadium.

Chris Draft, 40, a linebacker who retired in 2010, established a charity with his wife Keasha to support patients and raise awareness of the dangers of lung cancer. The Survivor at Every Stadium initiative takes patients to NFL matches across the US and has now spread to London, where the Washington Redskins will play the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday.

Mr Draft has invited Tracy Gordon and James Jukes, who are receiving treatment at Guy’s Cancer Centre, to the match after meeting one of the £160 million hospital’s top doctors, consultant medical oncologist Dr Rohit Lal.

His wife Keasha Rutledge Draft died of lung cancer aged 38 in December 2011, a month after they married. An “energetic, vibrant young woman” who had never smoked, her stage IV cancer was only discovered a year earlier when she felt a slight shortness of breath.

Linebacker: Chris Draft played for teams including the San Francisco 49ers
Getty Images

Mr Draft, who played for the Redskins, Chicago Bears and San Francisco 49ers among other teams in a 12-year career, told the Standard: “She made a commitment at our wedding for us to help other people. It’s not about her. It’s about the other people.”

The Team Draft initiative, part of the Chris Draft Family Foundation, aims to tackle the “stigma” surrounding lung cancer that it is a “smoker’s disease” and encourage people to lead healthy lifestyles. The couple met in 2006 while he was playing for the Carolina Panthers. Keasha, a university graduate with a degree in electrical engineering, was a professional dancer and cheerleader.

Mr Draft, who next week will be honoured by the American Cancer Society for his work, said: “My wife had a tremendous group of doctors and friends who made sure if she had any questions, they were answered. Our commitment is to empower all our survivors and make sure they can get to the answers. “It doesn’t mean it’s all going to work out and they will survive. But there is something to be said for really knowing about lung cancer and being on top of it.”

He will visit Guy’s Cancer centre tomorrow as part of his first visit to the capital.@RossLydall

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in