Brick Soccer Club Rallying Today to Help Boy, 8, Battling Brain Cancer

“It could have been one of mine.”

Craig Wood, a coach in the Bricktown Soccer Association, said the news in mid-August that one of his players had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor hit him hard, because he has three children of his own.

Liam Marino was by all appearances a healthy 8-year-old boy. He had just started playing soccer for Wood in July, attending a few of the team’s informal events, Wood said. But a trip to the hospital to check out a bump on his head after a fall led to a whirlwind trip to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where Liam underwent surgery to remove the tumor.

Wood is the lead organizer behind a fundraiser set for next weekend to help Liam’s family with the medical bills. The event, Warriors For Liam, will be held from 9 a.m. to noon at Pinewood Park on Route 88, the home of the Bricktown Soccer Association.

The event is named after Wood’s soccer team, and is “a coffee social,” Wood said. There will be soccer teams from around Ocean County participating in their own version of the Ice Bucket Challenge, the viral social-media donation campaign that has raised nearly $100 million for research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the fatal nervous system disease known to many as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Wood said a donation will be made to the ALS Foundation, but the focus is on helping the Marinos with the financial burden of Liam’s illness.

Pinewood Park is on the east side of Route 88, just east of the Garden State Parkway overpass. In addition to teams from BTSA, Wood said teams from the Twin County Soccer Association, Point Pleasant Soccer Club, Toms River Football Club and the Stafford Soccer Club will be participating.

The event is open to the public, Wood said.

For more information, check out the event’s Facebook page, here. To make donations to help the family, Wood has set up a gofundme site. Liam’s mother, Nora, also has set up a blog on caringbridge.org, Love and Light for Liam, to keep supporters updated on Liam’s progress.