Team, grandma lift each other

They charge up the hill in their football uniforms like Saxon warriors, steam rising from their breath as they beat a trail into the frozen grass.

"C'mon, let's keep going!" shouts the coach from the hilltop, blowing his whistle. "You can do it! Let's show some heart!"

With each blast of the whistle, the players run faster and cry out, "21 G!" Up and down the steep hill they go for 15 minutes — the last phase of a workout that could rival that of a Super Bowl team.

The Riverton Gremlins, though, are 8- and 9-year-olds, intent on one thing: winning the championship for player No. 21's grandmother, Sally Vranes.

"Twenty-one G" as she is known (the "G" stands for grandma) hasn't missed a game, even though she has terminal cancer and has spent the past two years in and out of chemotherapy treatments.

"The boys have really taken this to heart and have rallied around her," says Randy Curtis, one of five coaches for the undefeated Gremlins, who are competing in the Ute Football Conference for a division championship berth on Nov. 7.

"Sally leads our cheers after each game, and the boys always seek her out and sneak in a hug," he says. "It's been an experience nobody will soon forget."

Curtis suggested that I bring the team a Free Lunch of pepperoni pizza after one of their practices to hear the story of how a group of fourth-graders decided to dedicate their football season to 56-year-old Vranes.

She was too ill to attend the practice, "but she'll be here at the game — nothing will keep her from that," says her husband, Mike Vranes, 57. "She loves these boys. They've given her a huge lift."

When the team learned that 9-year-old Braxton Byrge's grandmother had a rare form of terminal glandular cancer called ACC (adenoid cystic carcinoma), the boys and coaches wanted to show their support.

They had "21 G" inscribed on their jerseys, and they asked Vranes to join their huddle and lead the cheer at the end of each game.

"We wanted to teach the boys that there is more to life than football," says head coach Frank Campbell, who gathered the team around at the beginning of the season to explain Vranes' grim prognosis.

"They all want a perfect season, and they all want the championship," he says. "But one of the biggest lessons we want them to walk away with is to understand what giving means."

At every practice, Campbell and the other coaches tell the boys to think about Vranes' fight when the workout seems too long and the hill seems too steep.

"Sometimes, we're tired and we're sore, but what we have to deal with is way less than 21 G's fight," says Parker Edgington, 9.