CLEVELAND -- Around the National Football League this weekend, players will be sporting specially designed cleats supporting causes close to their hearts, and 18 members of the Cleveland Browns will take part in the event.
Offensive lineman Spencer Drango was one of the Browns who took part in the event, and he represented the Dyslexia Foundation.
“When I was a kid in about fifth grade, I was diagnosed with dyslexia,” Drango said. “It was really challenging for me to learn English language arts growing up. It is just to raise awareness for it. It is more common that people think. Just because you have a learning disability of any kind doesn’t mean that you can’t overcome it and achieve anything.”
Drango hopes to inspire children affected by dyslexia to continue reaching for and working toward accomplishing their goals.
“I learned at a young age, like I said in fifth grade, to cope with it and different learning styles to help me, so now, it really doesn’t (affect me),” Drango said. “There are still little things that I catch here and there, but it has just become so fluid that it goes away.”
Quarterback DeShone Kizer was another Browns player who joined in the awareness event.
Kizer represented The Andrew Weishar Foundation, which is the family charitable organization of his former University of Notre Dame teammate, Nic Weishar. Andrew Weishar was Nic’s older brother and passed away from colorectal cancer.
After a difficult battle of treatment and surgery, Andrew had a recurrence of cancer and passed away on October 12, 2012, just two weeks shy of his 22nd birthday.
“They have been able to immediately impact and ease some of the pressures that come from families who are dealing with cancers of all sorts,” Kizer said. “I have a relationship with Nic, his brother at Notre Dame, and that has allowed me to become really tight with the family.
“I’m looking forward to continue to bring awareness to what they have. They do a big music festival called WeishFest that is actually this Friday, which is obviously a coincidence with the My Cause, My Cleats. I’m going to continue to work to promote that and allow them to continue to raise funds so they can continue helping these different families.”
