Newark Boy Cheered As ‘Shining Knight’ After Heart Surgery

NEWARK, NJ — Isaiah Thom, 9, stood in the spotlight at a recent Rutgers Scarlet Knights football game, raising a sword high during the first quarter intermission as he was officially "knighted" before the crowd. It was a well-deserved moment of glory for the 4th grader at North Star Academy in Newark, who recently underwent heart surgery.

Rutgers Athletics and RWJBarnabas Health highlighted Thom as their most recent “Shining Knight of the Game” during the Sept. 18 matchup against Delaware, part of their ongoing effort to pay tribute to a young person enduring a health challenge.

Rutgers won the game, 45-13.

According to Rutgers Athletics, Thom was born premature at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, where doctors detected a congenital heart defect that would require surgery. In 2019, Isaiah went to the Children’s Heart Center at Children’s Hospital of New Jersey at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center. There, he had successful heart surgery to repair his atrial ventricular septal defect.

Today, Isaiah is a super-active 9-year-old who enjoys playing basketball and hopes to play football for his school in the near future.

And according to his mother, he now has “more energy than the Energizer bunny.”

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