One day three years ago, Maurison Midy watched a neighborhood game of tackle football in the field behind his apartment complex in Stamford, Conn. Of all the players, he noticed one boy, pudgy and standing at about 5’5, dominating the field against eighth and ninth graders.

“He’s cutting everyone up, he’s making all the tackles, and these older kids are actually afraid to play against him,” said Maurison, a junior finance major at Syracuse University.

That player was his little brother, Wesley, who was about to start 7th grade. Since that day, Maurison has made it his goal to help Wesley become the best football player he can be.

“When I saw that spark of talent in 7th grade, I knew my goal was to get him to college for free,” Maurison said.

Wesley, now a high school freshman, earned the opportunity to go to Don Bosco Preparatory High School located in Ramsey, New Jersey, a school known for its high academic and athletic achievements. Don Bosco’s athletic programs have won 53 state championships and four national championships.

With tuition for the school costing more than $15,000 per year, however, the Midys realized they wouldn’t be able to fund Wesley’s education, despite the $5,000 Don Bosco gave him in yearly scholarship money. Two months ago, Maurison started fundraising with GoFundMe to try and compensate for the rest. His goal is to raise $12,000 so Wesley can attend Don Bosco for his sophomore year.

“I looked (the website) over and basically I just poured my heart out on the part I wrote and started sharing it all over my Facebook,” Maurison said. “I think I messaged literally everyone individually about it and I got 80 contributions, but hopefully, I’m gonna get more.”

So far, Maurison has raised $4,165 dollars with his GoFundMe campaign.

When Maurison realized Wesley’s talent for football, he started to train him on his own. Wesley ran sprints and long distances on and off the football field, and Maurison helped him cut weight and move positions from lineman to running back.

A year after Maurison watched Wesley play pickup football in the neighborhood, he was the leading scorer on his team in eighth grade. He was then selected to play on Team USA, a national team made up of some of the best athletes in the country.

Eventually, Maurison didn’t have the resources required to make Wesley as good as he wanted, so he got help from athletic trainers. He paid for their services himself.

Maurison attends SU with the help of financial aid. Every year, he finds it harder to get the money he needs to be able to return. Because of this, he made it his personal goal to make sure his younger brother and sisters can finish college debt free.

While at Syracuse, Maurison works for Food Services to help fund Wesley’s training. Odd jobs he does at home, including mowing lawns, go toward Wesley’s athletic endeavors.

Education is important to the Midys. Their mother, who immigrated from Haiti at a young age, raised them on her own. She wasn’t able to further her own education and wanted her kids to have that opportunity.

“She stressed education a lot growing up,” Maurison said. “Education is the way to financial stability. She wants us to grow up better than she did and the way to do that is education.”

This led both boys to strive for a more financially stable adult life than they had as kids.

“Being in that type of situation just makes us want to succeed more so you don’t have to have that for our children,” Wesley said.

Growing up in a situation like that could lead people to give up — but this wasn’t the case for Maurison, said Brian Kriftcher, his mentor and founder of Stamford Peace Basketball Club.

“You’re frequently at a crossroads in life,” Kriftcher said. “That crossroads may be your own upbringing and figuring out which path you take. And some people, in the face of family or environmental adversity, fold. I think it’s quite the opposite with Maurison. I think it really motivated him to do better.”

This motivation has carried over into how he takes care of his family.

“It’s almost like his life’s work is to provide for his brother and to invest in his brother and himself,” Kriftcher said.

Fundraising for Wesley’s education shows Maurison’s understanding of how important it is to seize opportunities like this, Kriftcher said. He sees Maurison’s efforts for his brother as rare.

“It doesn’t happen enough that relations invest in one another with that kind of fervor,” Kriftcher said.

For Maurison, the biggest reason to raise this money is because he feels Wesley deserves it.

“I just believe that he deserves people investing in him so he can make his dreams come true. He deserves that chance as much as anyone who wants something so badly they work for it every day,” Maurison said. “Anyone deserves that. Finances being in the way isn’t a reason why someone should not be able to have their dreams come true.”

Published on April 21, 2014 at 1:00 am

Contact Emma: ekbaty@syr.edu