Bears-Packers set aside to help disabled veterans

A heated rivalry was put to good use Sunday.

Both Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers fans gathered at Real Time Sports Bar and Grill in Elk Grove Village to watch the game and also raise money to help disabled veteran athletes participate in this year's Tour of Elk Grove bicycle race.

Held each summer in Elk Grove, the tour is one of the world's premier cycling events, approaching the prestige of the Tour de France.

This year, a competition for disabled veteran athletes will be added. The money raised Sunday will help underwrite the costs of the new event, such as awards and lodging.

The idea to add the disabled veterans competition came from The Heart of A Marine Foundation, created in honor of Lance Corporal Phillip E. Frank.

“It just seemed to be something that would encourage and support our disabled veterans,” said his mother, Georgette Frank, during Sunday's event.

Lance Corporal Frank was an Elk Grove Village resident who enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2002 and was killed in action in April 2004 by sniper fire while stationed in Iraq's Al-Anbar province, known as the Triangle of Death.

The foundation was created in his memory, to assist veterans and their families with such projects as providing software to treat traumatic brain injuries at trauma centers and VA hospitals nationwide. Now the foundation also will help disabled veterans who want to participate in the Tour of Elk Grove.

Barbara Matsukes, director of marketing and public relations for The Heart of A Marine Foundation, said they are working closely with the Tour of Elk Grove's management company to research what bikes will be used for the event.

“We would like to be able to incorporate as many disabled athletes as we can,” she said.

The event will offer the opportunity to compete to such wheelchair athletes as Darwin Coligado, who attended Sunday's fundraiser.

Coligado, an Elk Grove Village resident who was recently named Veteran of the Month by the Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs, began serving in the Navy in 1992 as an enlisted photographer and was later an officer and a member of the reserves.

Three weeks after he resumed civilian life in 2008, he was involved in a motorcycle accident in which he suffered a spinal injury that cost him the use of his legs.

He said the accident caused by a driver who was talking on a cell phone.

“I could have been shot at, land mines, IEDs (improvised explosive devices). None of that stuff happened to me. Some idiot was talking on their cell phone and changed my whole entire life,” he said.

Coligado, however, prevailed. A championship wheelchair athlete, Coligado has competed in the National Junior Disability Championships, the National Veteran Wheelchair Games and the Chicago Marathon.

He said the Tour of Elk Grove will be his first handcycling race.

The crowd was as rowdy as a Bears-Packers mob could be, with cheesehead hats and face paint liberally displayed. Before the game started, everyone fell quiet as Georgette Frank addressed the crowd.

“This is a very big deal,” she said, audibly touched. “We are so excited to be able to extend the foundation's reach to veterans, to be able to encourage the disabled to reach greater heights. Nothing is more important to them than competition, especially physical competition.”

For more information on the charity, go to www.heartofamarine.org.

• Daily Herald Correspondent Eileen O. Daday contributed to this report.