Boy Who Wrote Letter To Vikings' Coach Validated By Team's Success
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Remember Alex Loehlein, the little boy whose letter to Vikings coach Mike Zimmer went viral last season?
"Dear, Mr. Zimmer, thanks for letting me watch your practice last Saturday, it was fun. The players were nice and signed my Viking helmet. My grandpa said to expect good luck for you because you have used up all of your bad luck already. ALEX."
You also might recall that the Vikings won their very next game and Zimmer awarded the game balls to Alex and his grandpa.
And they've pretty much been rolling ever since.
Now a year later, with tomorrow's big matchup against the Packers looming, we thought we'd pay another visit to the little boy who turned the Vikings' luck around.
When you get a game ball from the Vikings, you put it where everyone can see it.
"We've had the ball up in his room on his shelf," said his mom, Jackie Loehlein, "so he can look at it every day."
An every day reminder of the impact Alex has had on his favorite football team.
"It's a positive," Jackie said. "It's something positive."
Alex has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a disease that weakens and eventually shuts down the muscles. There's no cure, and few people ever live past 25.
Last season, he was invited to watch Vikings practice through an organization called HopeKids, and then penned the thank you note that made him famous.
The Vikings were 2-5 when Alex wrote that in his letter.
They've gone 12-6 ever since.
As cute as the letter was, the fact is, Alex was right.
"He was right!" Jackie said. "They're doing excellent!"
But the hard part is that even though the Vikings have gotten better, Alex hasn't. In fact, he's gotten worse.
"You can just tell that it's getting harder for him to climb stairs," Jackie said.
Yet at the same time, Jackie has never been more hopeful. In August, right around the time the Vikings started training camp, Alex started a new experimental treatment --- a clinical trial of a new medicine.
"It's supposed to slow down the progression," Jackie said.
Alex is one of only 105 boys in the entire world approved to participate in the study. They fly to Los Angeles once a month for several days of treatment.
"It's hard that we have to fly that far away and spend four or five days out there," she said. "But it's definitely worth it."
If Alex is one of the ones getting drugs instead of placebo, doctors told Jackie he could start seeing positive progress by January.
There's now optimism that wasn't there a year ago. Kind of like their family's favorite football team, actually.
"I kind of relate to where they were, and now where they are. And the same with Alex," Jackie said. "I guess we're both kind of on the same roads to positive things now. And that makes me happy."
