“If I had to choose, I’d say that my style goes back and forth between relaxed and a hipster,” said Josh Brown, the placekicker for the New York Giants. He was sporting a flannel shirt from Tommy Bahama, the sponsor for the night’s charity shopping event where all proceeds went to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
“I’d like to grow a nice, thick beard, but I just can’t,” he said. “Though my wife wants me to. She’s the one who dresses me. Isn’t that what all married men do?”
Brown, whose own childhood friend died from Cystic Fibrosis, an autosomal recessive genetic disorder that affects mostly the lungs, pancreas, liver, and intestine, was hosting the night along with teammates JD Walton, Zak DeOssie, Ryan Nassib and Steve Weatherford.
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“It was Josh that brought this thing together,” said Eric Karp, Tommy Bahama’s senior director of branding.
Over the summer, the brand got behind one of Brown’s initiatives where he raised awareness to the disease by punting a football at random places throughout New York City.
“We asked to film him and then when we asked what he was involved with, we were onboard as well,” Karp said.
The shopping event, held at the Tommy Bahama location Fifth Avenue, raised more than $31,000 in addition to a $10,000 check presented by the brand.
“It’s not like many of the organizations that don’t really see progress for what they’re fundraising for,” said Liz Poret-Christ executive board member at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
“So much of the funding has already gotten us closer to the cure with the disease and what Josh is doing is bringing awareness to it,” she said.
Currently, the disease is categorized as an orphan disease, or one that affects so little of the population that it has not been adopted by the pharmaceutical industry.
“There are less than 200,000 of those affected and so when players like Josh bring attention to this, it really does help.”