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Fateful night

Kathie Spittal was at home Aug. 25 when she received a call from her husband. He said a player had been seriously injured during Eastern's home scrimmage and that she should drive with him to Cooper University Hospital in Camden, where Lawrence was being taken.

"Dan knew it was grave, but was praying things would be better than he expected," Kathie Spittal said. "He had already been through this with Adam Taliaferro, and to be honest I don't think he ever thought he would have to relive that nightmare again in his lifetime."

Taliaferro, an Eastern graduate Spittal had coached, was paralyzed after making a tackle in a 2000 football game for Penn State. He has since regained full range of motion. Taliaferro and his father, Andre, were watching the scrimmage at the time of Lawrence's injury.

Andre Taliaferro, a close friend of Howard, joined the coaches, athletic directors and athletic trainers from both schools at Cooper that night.

At the hospital, the Lawrences learned that Shykem had suffered multiple spinal fractures and that if he survived, there was little chance he would walk again.

"It was a sad situation, not only because of the news the family had just received," Kathie Spittal said, "but the conditions of the family."

Spittal said Lawrence's mother, Nita, arrived at the hospital in a car that looked like it was "from a junk yard" and was joined by her mother, Vivian Sims, her sisters and three of her six children. Her grandson, 1-year-old Omarion, was sleeping in the car.

Kathie Spittal, a teacher for the past 26 years in the Woodbury School District, said she spent much of that night trying to comfort Shykem's four sisters, Shanique, 20, Shyquana, 16, Ledora, 14, and Benita, 9, and his 15-year-old brother, Benjamin.

"I have seen some terrible situations over my (26) years, but I had not seen anything like I was witnessing that night," Spittal said. "A very young mother (Nita Lawrence is 34) with six children who were homeless, a car that looked as though, without exaggeration, it was . . . from a junk yard, that you couldn't help but wonder how it got from point A to point B.

"It was crazy and insane. The stories just got bigger and bigger and my emotional connection to the girls and family only got deeper and deeper as the days, weeks and months went by."

Taking action

On the night of Shykem's injury, Kathie and Dan Spittal returned to their home in Voorhees well after midnight and Dan Spittal immediately e-mailed a letter to the Eastern Football Booster Club, along with football coaches throughout South Jersey, stating the Lawrence family not only needed prayers, but a home, food and clothing.

"And that is how it started," Kathie Spittal said. "It snowballed with an outpouring of support from everyone."

Immediately after Shykem's injury, Nita Lawrence, who had been evicted from a hotel and was living out of her car with two of her six children, moved her family into her mother's two-bedroom house in Pemberton Township.

For the next month, Vivian Sims' home became the drop-off point for food, clothing and anything else that could be collected by the booster club.

"The back of my Explorer was filled up three times in the first week," said Jack Geisler, who had e-mailed coaches throughout the Gibbsboro-Voorhees Athletic Association. "Everybody stepped up."

While the Geislers directed fundraising and delivery efforts, Dan and Kathie Spittal spent much of their time visiting Shykem in the hospital.

"Dan and I returned to the hospital Saturday and Sunday morning (Aug. 26 and Aug. 27) with hoagies, soft drinks, chips for the family and I'm telling you, there were dozens of family members there all waiting for lunch," Kathie Spittal said. "In the beginning, Dan and I always represented the Eastern community and nothing more. That changed over time as we both got attached to the family."

Outpouring

As the Spittals became closer to Shykem and his family, donations continued to pour in from the South Jersey sports community.

Jackie Geisel said that more than $2,000 in gift cards to Acme, Target, Walmart and other retailers were collected and given to the Lawrence family.

The Adam Taliaferro Foundation established a separate fund for Shykem and provided him with new clothing, an iPod, an XM satellite radio, a portable DVD player, new pillows and blankets, a fan for his hospital room and food cards to his favorite restaurants. The organization also supplied Nita Lawrence and Sims with cellular telephones.

"Anything that we thought would make him a little happier and more comfortable, we bought," Kathie Spittal said. "It did not matter. We spent the money as if there was no end to it, and there wasn't."

While the Spittals made sure all of Shykem's needs were met, Jackie Geisler said a friend of the Spittal family anonymously donated a rent-free, three-bedroom house on Baird Boulevard in Camden for the Lawrence family. Shykem and his family have been living in the house since his release from Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia earlier this month.

The Adam Taliaferro Foundation contributed more than $25,000 to make the house wheelchair accessible, adding a back-door elevator to allow Shykem in and out of the house, a plasma television, an air conditioner and a new electrical system to support his ventilator.

But the house needed to be furnished.

"Someone donated a truck and picked up bedding in Medford," Jackie Geisler said. "Someone else knew someone in Society Hill who had dressers and furniture and we had them delivered."

Kathie Spittal helped purchase bathroom and kitchen accessories and a parent of one of her students donated a computer for Shykem's siblings.

"We had what they needed, but they seemed to become dependent," Jackie Geisler said. "They were genuinely appreciative, but as time wore on, they began saying, "We need something. Let's ask for it.' "

At Magee

After Shykem was admitted to Magee in late September, the Adam Taliaferro Foundation paid more than $2,000 a month for a companion to spend seven hours a night with Shykem and 12 hours a day on weekends.

When Kathie Spittal realized she and her husband were spending more time with Shykem than his family, she said she began cutting back on visits.

"When Shykem would end up back in the hospital for complications, so did we for hours at a time, most of the time by ourselves," Kathie Spittal said. "Whenever (Nita) needed something she did not hesitate to call Dan or myself. Dan never said no. It did not matter what she asked for, Dan got it or found someone who could get it. We did it because it was the right thing to do.

"I stopped going to visit Shykem when he started to get upset that I could not spend the night with him or the time he wanted from me. He hated being alone.

"Emotionally, I could not keep putting myself through it. But Dan never stopped, until he was served with papers."

"It was devastating'

When Dan Spittal received the letter late last month accusing him and his school of negligence in Shykem's injury, he ceased all contact with the Lawrence family.

"It was devastating to all of us," Jackie Geisler said of the threat of a lawsuit. "Dan and Kathie were really his surrogates."

Kathie Spittal said her husband wants nothing but the best for Shykem and was deeply hurt by the suit's allegations of negligence.

"No one wants Shykem to have a comfortable life more than my husband," Kathie Spittal said. "He has a lot of emotions and concerns for that young man. He has lost a lot of sleep worrying about what kind of life Shykem has been left with.

"If Dan had an extra 10 million in his pocket, believe me, it would be in Shykem's hands. That is who my husband is, that is what my husband stands for."

Larry Ginsburg, a former football coach at Eastern who founded the Adam Taliaferro Foundation and is now its treasurer, said about $30,000 has been raised specifically for Shykem's needs, but about $50,000 has been spent on him and his family since the injury.

He said the foundation will continue to support Shykem, providing him with transportation to the Woodrow Wilson senior prom next month and to his high school graduation in June.

"As far as we're concerned, we're still his surrogate family," Ginsburg said. "If he needs us, we're there for him. But one thing we're not going to do again is just give them money."

Kathie Spittal said that is the same message she and her husband want to convey.

"Shykem is entitled to have enough money to give him a quality of life, whatever that is," Kathie Spittal said. "He certainly does not deserve what he has been dealt.

"He was a young man playing a game he loved. He was not on a street corner pushing drugs and got shot. He was not robbing a corner store and got shot. He was just playing a game that he hoped would better his future.

"No one can or should deny Shykem the money that will help assist him living that quality life. It is just hard for me to understand what Dan has to do with the injury."