A team, by definition, is a group of players forming one side in a competitive game or sport. In a local case, members of a team have formed one side to help one of their own combat a terrible disease.

Tony Hamilton graduated from Waterloo High School in 1985. He loved to play football for the Bulldogs. In fact, he was Waterloo’s “Player of the Year” in 1984.

For the past 10 years, Hamilton has been battling the degenerative nerve disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

In Hamilton’s case, the progression of the disease has been fairly slow.

The life expectancy of an ALS patient averages about two to five years from the time of diagnosis, according to the ALS Association. For the last three years, Hamilton’s former football teammates have supported him by hosting benefit fundraisers.

The past two years, they’ve done golf tournaments. This time, they’re hosting a poker run this Saturday at noon beginning at Main Street Saloon in Waterloo.

Vehicles of all kinds will visit checkpoints and attendees will draw a card at each stop, hoping to have the best poker hand by the end of the run, which will be at Karban’s Knotty Pines in Paderborn.

There will be live music by the Rusty Van Go Band starting at 6 p.m.

One of Hamilton’s teammates, Tim Wilson, has been helping to organize the benefits.

“He was a phenomenal sportsman,” Wilson said of Hamilton. “This disease has hit someone who was really good athletically.” Hamilton has lost almost all mobility and is confined to an inclined chair, where he only has the use of just his head. Wilson said it has been important to Hamilton’s friends to help him cover the medical bills associated with this disease. This year, funds raised from the poker run will go directly toward Hamilton’s planned funeral expenses and some medical bills. “Even when he’s gone, we’re going to continue to do fundraisers in his honor,” Wilson said.

Janet Todd, Hamilton’s mother, said she and his father are his full-time caregivers, and they have received help from hospice the past couple of weeks as well.

Todd said Hamilton’s teammates have really rallied around him the past few years with these fundraisers.

“These guys have been friends for so long, and I think it’s great that they get together and do this for him,” she said.
Todd said they are going to try and get Hamilton out to Saturday’s event, but since his condition has continued to deteriorate, she said it’s harder to take him places.

“He’s in a lot of pain,” she said. “He’s only 48 years old.”

Hamilton said in a phone interview with the Republic-Times that through it all, he has been blessed with great friends.

“These guys are my teammates from the original Waterloo football team,” he said. “We were the ones who started it. They just want to help out a teammate, and I really couldn’t be more blessed.”

He said the greatest part of these benefits is getting to see all the people who come out.

“I still love chatting about the old days,” he said. “That’s the most fun thing. But this disease is terrible, and they don’t have a cure.”

Hamilton said he thought all the ALS “Ice Bucket” challenges that took place over the summer were a great way to raise awareness about the disease, and one of his friends even set up a page on Fundly.com to raise money for Hamilton and his family.

Contributors are able to leave comments, and Hamilton said he got all choked up reading them.

He said there needs to be more awareness not only for ALS, but for cancer and other diseases.

“We went from horse and buggy to putting a man on the moon in less than 75 years,” Hamilton said. “Now it’s time to do something about this.”

For more information on Saturday’s benefit poker run, call 618-806-2711.