Jeff Gordon: His Dream, Drive & Destiny

by Joe Garner

  “It was an education for Ray and his family and for all of us,” Jeff recalls. “I got on board . . . and we basically generated more awareness and funding for leukemia and lymphoma.”

  Jeff started by making contributions to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, hoping that he would be able to impact outcomes for kids like Ray J.

  By 1995, Jeff’s new desire for philanthropic work led him to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, a nonprofit organization that arranges experiences or “wishes” for children with life-threatening medical conditions. He soon discovered that children battling cancer made the most wishes. For Jeff, this reality spoke to the emotional and physical toll the disease takes on kids and their families. It deepened his desire to educate himself about the science of cancers in children.

  While Jeff continued his donations and fund-raising for numerous charities, he didn’t feel like he was making a real impact. “We received an overwhelming amount of requests to help animals in need, hungry people, every disease you can imagine and think of,” he says. So in 1999, Jeff decided to establish his own foundation.

  Jeff doing a Make-A-Wish meet and greet.

  Jeff cutting the ribbon during the opening ceremony for the Jeff Gordon Children’s Hospital, December 2006.

  He soon realized the ambitious undertaking meant partnering with hospitals and researchers. In 2005, construction had begun on the campus of Carolinas Medical Center–NorthEast for a new children’s hospital. This was the kind of opportunity Jeff had been looking for.

  He began discussions with the medical center about how he could help support the hospital that would ultimately serve so many children, including those in the racing community. His vision was to create a family-friendly atmosphere for the hospital’s pediatric patients. He wanted the design of the hospital to include an enhanced healing environment to reduce anxiety and stress for the children and their families. With an initial gift of $1.5 million and a promise of an ongoing partnership, the Jeff Gordon Children’s Hospital opened its doors in December 2006, featuring a peaceful, serene setting with a sculpture garden, aquariums, and enlarged photographs throughout the facility, taken by Jeff and Ingrid, of African wildlife.

  The hospital serves children regardless of their ability to pay. It offers intensive care and a range of subspecialty services.

  Torn between his passion for the foundation’s work and the demands of his racing career, Jeff decided he needed to bring on an experienced foundation director who could execute his vision. Jeff met Trish Kriger in 2006 through her sister-in-law, who worked with Jeff and knew his foundation was in need of an executive director. It seemed like a perfect fit for Kriger given her many years working with charities and nonprofits, her passion for children, and her own experience with childhood cancer as the sister of a leukemia survivor.

  “When I met with Jeff, we didn’t talk about NASCAR—we talked about Jeff’s passion and what he wanted to do,” Kriger says. “He wanted to give kids the same chance he had, which was to do something they loved without the impediment of child abuse, cancer, illness, lack of education, hunger—but cancer was the one thing that really came out in our conversation.” While the foundation supported various children’s causes, ranging from abuse and illness to education and hunger, childhood cancer was always a priority.

  Jeff helping out during a Jeff Gordon Children’s Foundation bowling tournament fundraiser.

  In 2008, Jeff refined the mission of the foundation to solely support children battling cancer, by funding programs that improved their quality of life, treatments that increased survivorship, and pediatric medical research dedicated to finding a cure.

  Jeff began looking to duplicate their efforts at the Jeff Gordon Children’s Hospital with other pediatric centers around the country. His criteria included “who is doing really impactful work, who is geared towards our cause, primarily pediatric cancer, and, who makes the most sense.” Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, Indiana, with its family-centered pediatric care, met the criteria. “When we looked around the country at all the different children’s hospitals, they rose to the top.”

  “He was very interested in understanding the details,” says Dr. Wade Clapp, a pediatrician and scientist at the Indiana University School of Medicine at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis and also the chairman of the school’s Department of Pediatrics based at Riley. When he first met Jeff, Dr. Clapp was a cancer investigator. “The [Herman B.] Wells Center for Pediatric Research included forty-six basic science investigators, and about a dozen of us study pediatric malignancies,” says Dr. Clapp. “[Jeff] was interested in understanding how what we were doing was going to improve care for kids.” At the time, Jeff was starting to formalize his foundation’s board of directors and asked Dr. Clapp to join.

  Dr. Clapp was researching a slow growing cancer on the peripheral nervous system that had no treatments. They were helping a young girl from Los Angeles who was involved in a clinical trial. “I had been working for several years,” Dr. Clapp recalls. “We’d done a series of studies that ultimately enabled us to take a drug that was developed by an adult oncologist for leukemia. We found that it actually hit a specific target that’s critical for plexiform neurofibroma, a cancer that occurs in babies and young children.” For the girl they were treating with the drug, the tumor shrank significantly.

  “The drug doesn’t actually attack the tumor cells; it attacks other cells that the tumor uses to enable it to grow,” Dr. Clapp explains. “Jeff wanted to know how this worked and the process of how we got there, which was a series of genetic and biochemical studies.” Since then, they have had clinical trials on a subset of tumors in younger kids. “Five years ago we had zero drugs, now we have three,” says Dr. Clapp.

  “Childhood cancer isn’t just one disease—there are over a dozen types of childhood cancer and countless subtypes, each requiring specific research to develop the best treatment for every child,” Jeff notes. “By working closely with leading pediatric oncologists, we determine the most promising research to fund and create funding priorities that will generate the greatest impact for children with cancer.”

  Jeff with Dr. Mark Kelley outside of the Jeff Gordon Children’s Foundation Research Lab at Riley Hospital for Children, Indianapolis, Indiana.

  One of many kids who has benefited from Jeff’s work at Riley (known as a “Riley Kid”) is Olivia Pierce. Olivia was diagnosed at three months old with retinoblastoma cancer in her left eye. Always in her signature red-rimmed glasses, Olivia’s infectious energy, can-do attitude, and ever-present smile belie the thirty-five surgeries, eight rounds of chemotherapy, and the removal of her left eye when she was an infant.

  Olivia Pierce presenting her artwork to Jeff, which now hangs in the foundation’s main office in Charlotte.

  Jeff and David Corcelli draw together at Riley Hospital for Children.

  “We always knew there was a connection between Riley Hospital and Jeff Gordon,” recalls Shannon Pierce, Olivia’s mother. “Growing up in Indiana I knew about NASCAR and I had an awareness of Jeff Gordon, but I really wasn’t knowledgeable or aware of his commitment to Riley at that point. . . . For us it hits close to home to know within the four walls of Riley Hospital for Children, they’re researching Olivia’s type of cancer and looking for a cure—not only hers but many types of cancer,” Shannon says. “Jeff is a big-name celebrity but he knows these kids. He knows Olivia’s story. As a parent it’s very humbling; it’s a privilege to be associated with him.

  “When Olivia was diagnosed with cancer at three months old, she wasn’t expected to make it to her first birthday,” Shannon adds. “Olivia beat the odds because of the great physicians and the best care ever at Riley. It’s people like Jeff Gordon that are committed to this. A million thanks to Jeff wouldn’t be enough.”

  “Jeff Gordon has a big heart,” says Olivia, who turned nine years old in 2015. “He always tells me to be strong, never give up, and there will be a way to stop cancer one wa
y or the other. . . . I told him fighting cancer is a lot like driving a race car—it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish that matters.” Olivia has stayed in touch with Jeff, and some of her artwork adorns the walls of the foundation’s headquarters in Charlotte.

  While Jeff has met many children with cancer through his foundation, he had a special connection with Leah Wasson, who met him when she was three years old. Leah is from Pittsboro, Jeff’s hometown in Indiana. “She and I did a photo shoot together and some different things around Riley,” Jeff remembers. “She was a part of our whole campaign one year.”

  Leah and her family would come to Indianapolis to participate in the fundraising bowling tournament. One year, about a month before the annual tournament, when Leah was seven years old, she relapsed.

  “I was driving when I got a call from the hospital telling me Leah passed,” Kriger says. When she called Jeff to give him the news, there was complete silence on the other end of the phone. The next day Jeff asked that a picture of Leah be sent to him at the track. That weekend, as a personal and private tribute to his young friend, he drove with Leah’s picture in his car.

  “Knowing there’s a child that you met, you spent time with them and their parents, and they’re no longer with us,” says Jeff, “nothing strikes home harder than that.”

  Jeff’s commitment to pediatric cancer research evolved into a global effort. He developed a relationship with the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), founded in 2005 by former president Bill Clinton. The nonpartisan organization convenes global leaders to devise and implement solutions to the world’s most pressing problems, including global cancer.

  In 2011, through Jeff’s involvement with CGI, his foundation granted Partners In Health and its sister organization, Inshuti Mu Buzima, $1.5 million over three years to bring treatment to children suffering from cancer in Rwanda. Prior to Jeff’s funding, these patients had little or no access to cancer treatment, let alone high-quality cancer care.

  “In the United States, there are statistics that tell you there’s an eighty percent cure rate [for some pediatric cancers], so, definitely, strides have been made,” Jeff says. “The flip side of that is Rwanda.” When most think of this small southeastern African country, they think of the horrific genocide that took place there in 1994. But the country has stabilized and made huge strides in health care, with the exception of cancer treatment. “They weren’t getting treatment at all,” Jeff says. “Their doctors and hospitals didn’t have the ability to do biopsies.”

  There was also no access to screening, diagnosis, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or surgery. Rwandans had to travel great distances in search of treatment that was ineffective. “In some cases, people were walking miles to three different hospitals, and they were getting over-the-counter medications for pain when what they needed was the cancer treatments we could provide,” Jeff says.

  Preferring to experience things firsthand, Jeff decided to go to Rwanda with Dr. Lawrence Shulman, director of the Center for Global Cancer Medicine at the Abramson Cancer Center, to see the Butaro district hospital for himself. “Going to Rwanda is no picnic,” Dr. Shulman emphasizes. “It is not a vacation spot. Just getting there is difficult. Getting to the hospital is more difficult. It’s miles and miles of dirt roads in a remote volcanic mountain range of northern Rwanda, near the border with Uganda. It’s not an easy trip, and it displays the level of his commitment to have gone multiple times.

  “We walked through the hospital and saw child after child with cancer growing out of their heads, out of their stomachs, out of their chests,” Dr. Shulman remembers of the experience. “They were lying there waiting to die. The death rate was essentially one hundred percent.”

  (left to right) Lawrence Shulman, MD and Director, Center for Global Cancer Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania/Senior Oncology Advisor at Partners in Health; Agnes Binagwaho, MD and Minister of Health of Rwanda; Chelsea Clinton; former president Bill Clinton; Jeff; Paul Farmer, MD and Chief Strategist and Cofounder of Partners in Health.

  Jeff and Ingrid visit with children in a village near the Butaro Cancer Center of Excellence in Rwanda, 2011.

  Jeff’s foundation got involved, and helped create the Butaro Cancer Center of Excellence at Butaro district hospital. The Jeff Gordon Children’s Foundation has donated almost $2 million so far, the largest single donor in the creation of the center. Jeff is more than just a donor. “He’s a true partner in this work,” Dr. Shulman adds. “This is more than just writing a check. He cares deeply about what we’re doing. He cares deeply about the children we’re able to treat in Rwanda.”

  The program is now viewed internationally as a model for how to develop high-quality cancer care in a very poor resource setting. “What’s happened in Rwanda has established a precedent that this can be done in the poorest of settings,” Dr. Shulman says. “Jeff Gordon and his foundation has helped make a difference in thousands of lives.”

  “Jeff knows a lot about his subject,” Kriger says. “He gets the science behind this. Is he wearing a white lab coat? No. But he reads about it and he understands. He knows he can leverage his notoriety but he can’t do that credibly if he doesn’t get what he’s talking about. So he really works at it.”

  Jeff believes his commitment to the foundation has a lot to do with who he aspires to be as a person. “I’m a man of my word. So if I give my word, I’m gonna do my best to stand by it—and if I’m gonna stand by something, I want it to be something that I can truly be proud of,” Jeff says. “I think that relates to driving . . . being a dad, a husband, a philanthropist, a representative of a company . . . that’s just the way I like to do things.”

  From the start, Jeff wanted to know how to continue the foundation’s growth after he finished racing. “That’s pretty forward thinking. He’s very humble, concerned and wants to solve problems,” Dr. Clapp says.

  “Most of us are lucky if we find one thing in life we are passionate about,” Jeff said in his closing remarks at the 2012 Heisman Humanitarian Award ceremony. “I found that, in racing, at an early age. But I’ve also been very fortunate to have found another passion and that’s helping others in need. This award inspires me to continue putting as much effort as I can into the things I know are the right things to do, and I hope it will also inspire others.”

  Jeff Gordon talks with crew chief Alan Gustafson in the garage at Daytona International Speedway, 2011.

  13

  A RENEWED COMMITMENT

  BY 2010, JEFF HAD BEEN RACING competitively for more than three decades and was coming up on his eighteenth season in the Cup Series. The years of wear and tear were beginning to take a toll on his thirty-eight-year-old body. Despite injections and therapies and regular sessions with a specialist, he often found himself racing in pain. The fact that he hadn’t won a championship since 2001 and that he’d won just once in seventy-seven races only made it worse.

  He raced to win, not to finish sixth or seventh or have a “pretty good” season, or even for the money. The previous year, he had become the first NASCAR driver in history to surpass $100 million in career race winnings, a figure that paled in comparison to what he’d earned in sponsorship dollars, endorsement deals, and other business arrangements. “I’ve gotten paid a lot of money for doing this—far more than I ever thought I would—but at no time was I ever doing it for the money,” he says. “I’ve never searched for that. What I have searched for is the opportunity to race and be competitive and win.”

  He couldn’t help but harken back to his years with Evernham, when everything had seemed to serve itself up. “I wasn’t doing anything special other than what I had always done,” he muses, “but with more confidence, resources, and the right people. We just clicked as an organization. It wasn’t that we weren’t working hard, but it just seemed to come so much easier.”

  Winning had always sustained and motivated him, but now he was working that much harder for diminishing returns. “If your teammate is kickin
g your butt every weekend and winning championships, you ought to be as well,” he says. “So I asked myself, ‘What am I doing wrong? Maybe I need to change my approach. Maybe it’s time.’ But then I realized rather than ‘change,’ I needed to recommit to the things that have always worked for me, believe in myself and go to the track and, if anything, work even harder at it—at the physical fitness side, what I was eating, and through time spent with the team trying to analyze what the cars were doing. I just tried to do my job even better, something that honestly I never had to focus on but now the game was changing and I had to change along with it.”

  The problem was, things weren’t improving. If anything, they got a bit worse in 2010. The team would be highly competitive one race, then barely register the next, and they still weren’t mustering any wins. At one point, at Letarte’s suggestion, and with Rick Hendrick’s full support, the crew chief and Jeff booked a weekend fishing trip with a sports psychologist to see if they could get to the bottom of what was holding them back.

  Jeff did have a nice run of five straight top-fives in the summer and still made the Chase, but his fall was probably most memorable for the scuffle with Jeff Burton after being wrecked under caution at Texas. And for the second time in three seasons, there had been no wins.

  “In my opinion,” Jeff says, “2010 was one of the worst seasons I’ve ever had. And I was not motivated anymore. I’d always had enough confidence that I felt like if we got down a little bit, I could get us back up, that we would find a way to get back. That year, I wasn’t so sure. I felt like we pretty much exhausted every option.”