A coach, a Christmas tree and a record donation. My daughter’s legacy lives on this year

Last Saturday, Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital collected a record-breaking donation during its annual Festival of Trees fundraiser.

The “Kate Tree,” named after my daughter who passed away from breast cancer at age 27, was purchased with a $600,000 donation from her former soccer coach Kevin Iverson and his wife Theresa.

From grades 7-12, Kate played for Iverson on a local recreational team called “The Speeders.” Six years of road trips, tournaments and hard-won muddy battles bonded the team for life. Even after the girls hung up their cleats, they remained friends.

As a coach, Iverson told the Speeders they were the toughest players on the field, and then he made them prove it. When they got knocked down, he yelled at them to get back up, and after every game, win or lose, he taught them the scoreboard never gets the last word.

“What did we do right?” he’d ask. “What can we do better?”

Iverson was no happy-go-lucky, Ted Lasso-type. The girls never got a “Just believe!” locker room pep talk. Iverson only changed facial expressions when he was yelling at referees, which happened at almost every game, or when he rolled his eyes at players who dared to make an excuse.

“Unlucky” was the word Iverson used if a player missed a goal shot, and it was the exact word Kate used to describe her cancer diagnosis.

The toughness Kate learned playing under Iverson accompanied her to chemo infusions, surgeries and radiation therapy. The look she got in her eye before a difficult treatment was similar to the one she got before the starting whistle in a soccer match. “I got this,” it said.

The day she heard the word “cancer,” Kate made her friends and family promise there would be “no bad days.” She asked us to remind her and each other of the humor and beauty all around.

Kate was the biggest practitioner of “No Bad Days,” and up until her last one in April 2019, she found strength in kindness and never gave in to hopelessness.

The Iverson family came to the hospital for a final goodbye. If Iverson later yelled at the ultimate referee, we didn’t see it.

But he didn’t let death have the last word in Kate’s story. He asked Kate’s best friend and pediatric ICU nurse Mackenzie Fruge to decorate a tree in her honor for the annual Mary Bridge fundraiser, and then this gruff coach did some fundraising to make the highest donation for a tree in Mary Bridge history.

The money will go toward all local children battling cancer and other diseases.

Instead of keeping the tree for himself, Iverson had the eight-foot wonder delivered to our house. Since Kate’s death, we haven’t had much enthusiasm for celebration, but you can bet this year, there will be joy under our roof.

The “No Bad Days” tree is decorated with all things Kate loved: rainbow colors, puppies and passports. But it’s missing one ornament, an omission I will quickly remedy.

At the top of the tree, I will place a picture of Kate in her red Speeders uniform. That’s when she was happiest, competing side by side with the people she loved.

Karen Irwin is a former editorial writer at The News Tribune. She can be reached at irwinkd@yahoo.com.

This story was originally published December 9, 2021 at 5:00 AM.