12 years after cancer battle, Charlotte FC rookie rekindles moment with MLS veteran
While Charlotte FC’s first-ever home match helped usher in a new era for soccer in the city, it also rekindled old connections. In one case, it provided a rare reunion for two players on the pitch and a special moment after the whistle.
Rookie midfielder Chris Hegardt entered the match for Charlotte in the 87th minute as the team faced the LA Galaxy on Saturday in front of an MLS record-setting 74,479 fans.
On the pitch for the Galaxy was midfielder Sacha Kljestan, who 12 years ago visited Children’s Hospital Los Angeles where Hegardt was then an eight-year-old cancer patient he met.
“I remember parts of it,” Hegardt told The Observer. “I was really young, but he gave me a signed jersey and I have it framed on my wall at home, so I mean, it was pretty cool to play against him. We talked a bit after the game. He gave me some words of wisdom.”
What did Hegardt take from the conversation with Kljestan all these years later?
“To keep working and that there are gonna be a lot of bumps in the road,” Hegardt said. “But you’ve just got to keep a positive mindset and keep going. That’s how I look at it, as motivation to just keep working, just keep going.”
That’s exactly what Hegardt has done. At seven years old, doctors discovered a malignant tumor in his liver after a soccer ball hit him in the stomach. He underwent repeated rounds of chemotherapy and a liver transplant, which he called a “difficult time.” He said that from the diagnosis to being deemed cancer-free and fully recovered took about six or seven months.
Hegardt quickly returned to playing soccer in Southern California, including for the LA Galaxy Academy, before joining the Seattle Sounders Academy, then USL club Tacoma Defiance in his earlier career. He appeared in 31 matches for the Georgetown Hoyas and signed a contract with MLS expansion team Charlotte FC in January.
Kljestan, a league veteran, tweeted Friday that he ran into Hegardt’s parents at his hotel lobby in Charlotte while in town for the highly anticipated match. He posted pictures of the meeting with Hegardt in the hospital, saying that he, “Gave him a jersey once, hopefully he will give me his tomorrow!” The tweet has been liked more than 12,000 times.
“The whole thing is crazy,” Kljestan told reporters. “You visit kids in the hospital sometimes and then you never hear from them again, or sometimes you hear the worst.”
“(His mother) told me he was playing for Charlotte, and I was like, ‘Oh, in the Academy?’ And she was like, ‘No, the first team.’ And I was like, ‘Man, this is crazy,’ ” Kljestan continued. “He beat it and he kept on pushing himself and ended up having a great college career and now turning pro at a young age was fun to watch him play tonight.”
Hegardt is already proving himself as a key piece of Charlotte FC’s plans, appearing late in each of the first two matches of the season, first against D.C. United last weekend in a 3-0 loss. Charlotte head coach Miguel Ángel Ramírez said after the Galaxy match that he’s been impressed with the level of young players like Hegardt and midfielder Ben Bender, who are both 20 years old.
Hegardt said he’s tried to learn from Kljestan’s game.
“He’s a great player. I think he’s a very technical, smart, savvy, creative player and I think we have parts of our game that are the same,” Hegardt said. “I think he’s a great model and he’s been in the league for so long, so he’s someone that I can look up to.”
Kljestan used the same word, “savvy,” to describe Hegardt.
“He’s on his second (MLS) game as a professional and I’m probably at my 650th, so we are at different stages in our careers, but it was still amazing to be on the field with Chris,” Kljestan said. “And in five to ten minutes, he showed that he has some real quality. He was getting the ball back on his right foot and trying to make some plays. I congratulated him after the game and I told him he could reach out to me whenever he wants, if he wants advice or anything like that.”
The soccer pros will share more than parts of their game and the pitch for a night. They swapped MLS jerseys following Saturday’s match, a 1-0 loss for Charlotte, and reflected on the full-circle moment.
“I think for me, the whole moral of the story there is just be a good person,” said Kljestan, who was a Chivas USA player moving to Anderlecht in 2010. “It cost me nothing to be kind to him and his family that day, and if it just gave him one percent of hope or just made him smile a little bit that day, then it was all worth it.”
“Life is tough sometimes,” Kljestan continued. “But life can also be beautiful, and so in that moment, like I said, if I was able to just bring him a smile that day, and keep him happy, keep him distracted for whatever it was an hour that I spent with him in his room. We can all just be better at that I think. We can all just be nicer to each other, try to be kinder to each other with what’s going on in the world today. You never know what kind of day people are having, so if we can just try to be a little bit kinder to people I think we’ll make this world a better place.”
For Hegardt, the visit was important enough that he’s kept the jersey framed for all these years. Now, he has another one to add to his collection and he’s not likely to forget the night. It was one of the earliest matches in his MLS career in front of the league’s biggest crowd.
“It was insane,” Hegardt said. “But like I said, it was just credit to how hard I’ve worked. (I’ve) stayed positive, stayed motivated throughout my whole life. I think it’s just the start, and I’m just gonna keep going.”
