For Every Kid Who Never Had the Opportunity

By Austria Cohn

The tragic and sudden passing of a youthful teen has led to his family, teammates, and community taking action, so no other family has to experience the same loss.

Ralph Maccarone received a phone call from his son’s coach, Mike, as he was driving to pick his son up from soccer practice. The coach told him that his son, Rafe, who’s 15 years old, “dropped on the field.”

Ralph assumed he fainted or passed out from the heat or exhaustion.

“There was silence on the other end of the phone, and Mike said, no, you need to get to the hospital now,” Ralph recalls in detail.

Ralph raced to the Arnold Palmer Children’s Hospital in Orlando, where his son was taken, and his teammates joined him shortly.

“We were told at that point that things weren’t good,” Ralph remembers the night. “He ended up passing away the next evening from sudden cardiac arrest.”

Later, his family and teammates learned that Rafe had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) that caused his sudden cardiac arrest (SCA).

The sudden death of Rafe shook his family, teammates, and community. A sports physical is required to play soccer, and Rafe passed that exam every year. The basic exam didn’t give him or his family the necessary warning. Rafe passed away one week before his sixteenth birthday.

According to Who We Play For’s (WWPF) website, “SCA is the #1 killer of student athletes and the leading cause of death on school campuses. 1 in 300 young people have an undetected heart condition that puts them at risk for SCA.”

Purpose of Who We Play For

The organization conducts screenings using electrocardiograms (ECGs) to detect any signs of SCA. These screenings are fast, reliable, and noninvasive, and the students receive their test results in three to five business days.

According to Ralph, the organization has screened over 200,000 kids in seven states. They have found over 200 kids with life-threatening cardiac issues that have gone undetected.

WWPF is also pushing for every school to have an Emergency Action Plan with the necessary medical equipment nearby and available in case a student goes into SCA.

In Rafe’s case, medical equipment was unavailable, like an automated external defibrillator (AED). The AED was locked in the school office because it was after hours during practice.

The organization provides ECGs for $20 each; normally, this equipment would cost anywhere between $150 and $200.

A Team Coming Together

After the unforeseen death that changed so many lives, Rafe’s teammates came together years later to found the organization Who We Play For.

“They decided they wanted to do something about it,” Ralph says. “It was called the Play for Rafe Foundation, and then it was morphed into Who We Play For.”

The nonprofit began in Florida but has stretched across the U.S. Now Ralph lives in Colorado and does screenings every year in Pagosa Springs. The Pagosa Springs screening focuses on eighth graders' heart health before they attend high school.

When the organization was founded, Ralph asked Evan Ernst, the executive director and one of Rafe’s teammates, why he was creating this nonprofit.

“He looked me straight in the eye and said, Mr. Maccarone, you were there when it happened. You don’t want another family to have to go through what you and your wife have gone through,” Ralph recalls. “They have held true to that commitment to our son and to our family.”

How YOU Can Help

If this story touches your heart, you can help the cause by donating to cover a child's screening. If you want screenings at your child’s school, you can contact WWPF. Finally, let’s bring awareness to SCA and prevent this horror from happening to another family.