Honoring LEGENDS

By Sam Micatrotto

The 18th Annual Legends for Charity Dinner benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is coming to Phoenix! This cornerstone event, always held in conjunction with the Big Game, will be taking place on Thursday, February 9, 2023, at the Hyatt Regency in Downtown Phoenix.

This year’s recipient of the coveted Pat Summerall Award will be Howie Long, Pro Football Hall of Famer and studio analyst on FOX NFL Sunday, who also owns a home here in Scottsdale.

The dinner, which got its start as a luncheon during the 2005 Big Game, has since grown to be one of the biggest charity dinners that take place during the weekend of the Big Game. The event was created by Cheryl DeLeonardis of Ocean 2 Ocean Productions, and with the addition of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as the charitable beneficiary, the annual affair is a cornerstone event that brings together sports broadcasters and athletes to honor their peers while supporting the lifesaving mission of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital: Finding cures. Saving children.

The turnout for the inaugural event, honoring Pat Summerall, was much more than anyone could have anticipated as ICONIC NFL broadcasters such as Troy Aikman, Greg Gumbel and Lesley Visser showed up to pay tribute to the legend who came before them.

Because of Summerall’s obvious impact on those in the broadcasting industry, the Pat Summerall Award was created along with this new tradition, to “honor a national broadcaster or prominent sports personality who exemplified the characteristics Pat Summerall wanted the award to represent – an individual who has had an outstanding career and who has made a significant impact in their community.” Some past honorees include Erin Andrews, John Madden, Joe Buck and Michael Strahan.

Summerall personally chose the honoree and presented the award himself each year from its inception until his passing in 2013. His legacy will continue to live on through the Legends for Charity Dinner and with every child who walks through the doors of St. Jude, the official charity partner for Legends for Charity.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has been part of the big event for the past 17 years! All proceeds from the Legends for Charity Dinner benefit St. Jude, where families never receive a bill for treatment, travel, housing or food—so they can focus on helping their child live.

Through research and treatment, St. Jude aims to advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases. They vow that no child will be denied treatment based on race, religion or their family’s inability to pay. They are also the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children.

When St. Jude opened in 1962, childhood cancer was considered incurable. Since then, St. Jude has helped push the overall survival rate from 20 percent to more than 80 percent, and they won’t stop until no children die from cancer. St. Jude also shares the discoveries it makes so that other doctors and scientists can use the knowledge to save even more children worldwide.

The event has raised more than $10 million for the kids of St. Jude since 2006, with $2 million of that coming from last year’s event alone! As always, the goal is to continue adding to that total this year at the 18th Annual Legends for Charity Dinner.

Every child deserves a chance to live their best life and celebrate every moment. When you support St. Jude, you help give kids with cancer around the world that chance.

Tickets and sponsorship packages for the event can be purchased directly on the Legends for Charity Dinner website: www.legendsforcharity.com