Naperville dodgeball tourney for 'somebody who mattered' approaches final year

Dodgeballs were flying every which way off Denise DiMarzo's wheelchair as she smiled and laughed.

It was early 2016, and Denise had been battling ALS for five years. She would have only a few months to live, but this day was a celebration of life.

She'd long ago lost the ability to walk and talk because of the degenerative disease, which causes the neurons that carry signals from the brain to the muscles to die, stealing physical abilities while mental function remains intact.

But in the chaos of the moment, at the fifth annual Dodgin' 4 Lou Gehrig's Disease Dodgeball Tournament in Naperville, she was experiencing all the joy of an event she'd come to anticipate.

“She loved seeing all the kids dressed in their crazy colors or something to define them from every other team,” said Denise's husband, longtime Meadow Glens Elementary School gym teacher Chris Benyo. “It's just a feel-good event.”

It's with a mix of emotions — gratitude, hope and joy among them, yet certainly a measure of sadness, too — that Benyo and tournament organizers Delaney Gibbons and Taylor Morrissey are preparing for this year's sixth and final dodgeball bonanza at 5 p.m., Friday, Feb. 24, at Naperville North High School.

Gibbons and Morrissey, both seniors at Naperville Central High School, are former students of Benyo's who turned a seventh-grade service project assignment into something with deep meaning for their one-time gym teacher, their classmates and plenty of others around Naperville.

Benyo remembers the moment the girls brought their tournament dreams to his attention.

“I remember asking them why, and why they wanted to do a dodgeball tournament,” Benyo said. “They said they wanted to do something for somebody who mattered to them. It was like they rehearsed this together because it was in perfect harmony, what they said.”

The teens say the same thing now, more than five years later, after they've graduated from junior high, joined clubs and sports, formed career interests and watched their first gym teacher lose his wife last July.

They say the disease, something they'd never heard of until it struck Denise, has changed them as well.

“I don't think we really knew how bad it really was,” Gibbons said about ALS, which stands for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a cause for which she and her friend now have raised nearly $100,000.

“Seeing what it was actually like and how fast it affected” Denise was moving for Morrissey as well. “The first year she was in a wheelchair but could talk, but by the second year she was already having the machine that helped talk for her.”

The frenzied fun of dodgeball aside, Morrissey and Gibbons say they got to see how Denise and Benyo kept their spirits up year round and remained “courageous and positive.” The couple's approach has informed both of the girls' career goals.

Gibbons wants to be a nurse.

“Nursing for her will be the perfect field,” said her mother, Lisa Gibbons, who has helped the girls learn to seek sponsorships, find food vendors and referees and handle tournament planning nearly on their own. “She has that compassion and wants to take care of someone.”

Morrissey is considering a future in oncology or medical research.

Neither realized their service project — even with their attempt to make it meaningful — would become so big.

They hosted 22 teams their first year, then the field blossomed to 50. They raised money for the Les Turner ALS Foundation at first, then switched the beneficiary this year to the Muscular Dystrophy Association because Benyo and Denise had been using more services from that organization.

“They had their vision and they saw this thing explode into an event that a lot of the Naperville community looks forward to,” Benyo said.

The growth of the tournament has been a learning and teaching opportunity for the students, who have been friends since meeting through their mothers and their Girl Scout troops in kindergarten.

They've learned to approach business people, build community support, run a fair event and raise money for a worthy cause. And they've taught their younger peers that trying to help even one person can go a long way.

“Last year they went back to their junior high and talked to all the seventh-graders and said, ‘Hey, when we were your age, this is what we did,'” Gibbons' mother said. “‘You can do something like this for another cause. Don't think you can't do anything when you're that young.'”

Organizers predict this year's Dodgin' tournament will sell out, and teams can sign up through Jan. 31 for the junior high, high school or adult divisions at $225 for each squad of between six and 10 players. Registration is available at dodgin4lougehrigs.com.

The event is always emotional, but the teens say this year's will be especially poignant for everyone involved, from their longtime friends and teachers who've tossed and dodged every year to their gym teacher who gave them the reason to start it all.

With Denise no longer here and Gibbons and Morrissey preparing for college, the tournament's main players all say it's time to move on after one grand finale.

“Certainly one of the best things that ever happened to Denise and I was this dodgeball tournament from these girls who mean so much to me,” Benyo said. “And apparently we mean so much to them, too.”

About this series

This is the first in an occasional series of stories introducing some of the many people making positive contributions every day in DuPage County. If you have suggestions for people we should celebrate, drop us an email at rsmith@dailyherald.com and include the word “Faces” in the subject line.