Fundraiser Sunday For Matawan's Darrell Rogers

HAZLET, NJ — Immediate Care of Hazlet will be hosting a fundraising event this Sunday, July 8 at their location at the Airport Plaza parking lot in honor of a local Matawan teen who suffered a heart attack this spring while playing basketball.

All proceeds from Sunday's event, called "Ball for Life," will benefit Matawan High School sophomore Darrell Rogers Jr. Ball for Life will feature the Matawan Regional High School Band with Trail Blazers team members and Matawan students showing their support. The event will also feature face painting, food, and door prizes. The Boss 107.1FM radio station will also be on premises hosting on-air radio segments and giveaways.

Rogers, 16, played varsity basketball for the Huskies and loved the game so much he even dreamed of playing pro one day. But everything changed when he collapsed suddenly during a practice on May 21. The young man suddenly fell to the ground while going for a layup during an AAU basketball practice at Matawan-Aberdeen Middle School.

Rogers had suffered a sudden cardiac arrest due to an undiagnosed hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a common and hard-to-detect cause of sudden heart attacks in teen and young adult athletes. Coach Sean Sheppard and another basketball coach, Chris Schuster, gave him CPR and he was rushed by helicopter to Robert Wood.

His recovery has been slow going: Rogers remains in the pediatric intensive care unit at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, according to the Asbury Park Press.

"He is slowly recovering, emphasis on slowly," said Sheppard. "He had some brain damage and minor kidney damage due to lack of oxygen. He has to go through therapy to see where he's at in terms of his recovery process."

Rogers has been breathing on his own since May 25 and he is alert when people come into his room at ICU, his coaches told the APP.

The basketball coaching staff at Matawan Regional describe Rogers as a hard-working young kid who simply loved the game. He loved basketball so much that it was his dream to play pro one day.

"As a freshman he wasn't a varsity player, but he just developed," Coach Giraldo said, who called Rogers 'extremely coachable.' "He's a basketball junkie, constantly working out, and he just kept getting better and better. At times he was our best player."

"Day in and day out Darrell came to practices and games and worked as hard as he possibly could," his GoFundMe page read. "He has aspirations of being a Division 1 basketball player and was working his tail off to make that dream become a reality. Unfortunately, Darrell has come to a bump in the road. Please keep Darrell and his family in your thoughts and prayers."

Ball for Life will go from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. this Sunday, July 8 in the Airport Plaza parking lot outside Immediate Care Walk-In on Rt. 36 South in Hazlet.

“Darrell is a young man with a bright future ahead of him,” said Immediate Care CEO Sal Cannizzaro. “Our thoughts are with him and his family and we want to support them in raising money to cover his medical expenses.”

Please direct all donations for Darrell Rogers Jr to the Rogers family’s official GoFundMe page:

https://www.gofundme.com/uud4j-help-support-the-rogers-family

Photos of Darrell provided by Immediate Care Hazlet and his GoFundMe Page. GoFundMe is a Patch promotional partner.