WVU QB Nicco Marchiol Promoting Fundraiser to Help Fight of Sick Young Man

WVU quarterback Nicco Marchiol is helping to teach us all a valuable lesson in the midst of debating about rankings, transfers and conference realignment – life is much bigger than football.

Marchiol posted a video message he sent to a kid battling multiple life-threatening diseases. He captioned the video with an explanation of Codey’s situation.

“Codey has been battling Neuroblastoma for 18 years – and now has leukemia – and was recently placed in ICU after having double pneumonia. Donate to help support Codey in his fight,” said Marchiol on X (Twitter).

Bigger than football. 🙏🏻 https://t.co/3dnlyskJjx

— Mike J. Asti (@MikeAsti11) December 11, 2023

He did this to promote a fundraiser set up for Codey. Marchiol goes into more detail about Codey’s full story on a Champsraise page for the young man.

“Codey’s a young man who has been battling Neuroblastoma for almost 18 years with many relapses and countless surgeries. Just this past summer, Codey’s health has really declined and he’s now oxygen dependent. His lungs have cancer and fluid in them, but Codey’s body is too weak to keep doing chemotherapy treatments. Recently when Codey was doing a work up to see how much things have progressed, doctors discovered that he now also has a second cancer called acute myleiod leukemia. Codey has become blood transfusion-dependent, needing transfusions for both blood and platelets every other week. We are hopeful that his lungs will heal enough that he can start chemotherapy for one of the two cancers. Codey’s scheduled to begin a trial in NYC that will hopefully help his lungs so it’ll give him a better quality of life.

In December 2023, Codey was placed in the ICU after having double pneumonia — and doctors found on recent blood work that his carbon dioxide in his body is dangerously high. The team wanted to place Codey on a ventilator to get the CO2 level down. With fear that he may not come off the vent, Codey and his mother opted to try a bipap machine to help push O2 into his bloodstream and the CO2 out of his bloodstream. Codey’s currently working hard to get his levels at a safe range. While in the hospital, he will also have his ureteral stents replaced due to them failing — and Codey retaining over 5 liters of fluid. After removing 20 pounds of fluid and taking the catheter out, it’s been decided to change Codey’s failing stents.

Codey lives at home with his mom. Codey lost his dad to a tragic accident a couple years ago leaving his mom to be his only caretaker. Codey was very close to his father and misses him deeply. He helped with Codey’s appointments and medical needs. She tries to go to work as much as possible to support them as she carries their health insurance but this is a struggle as Codeys oncologist is at memorial Sloan Kettering cancer center in NYC. This leaves his mother missing a lot of work to take him to his many appointments as he is in a wheelchair when traveling due to how weak he is.

Campaign organized by Codey’s mom, Amy St. John. Stripe automatically sends donations to Amy.”

To join Nicco Marchiol and donate to support Codey, click here.

For a related story, Garrett Greene and Zach Frazier visited a sick kid the morning after losing on a last-second Hail Mary against Houston during the 2023 regular season.