Michigan safety Vada Murray was one of the Wolverines' greats in the late 1980s. He was also a husband, father and Ann Arbor Police Department officer who passed in April 6, 2011 from cancer at 43.
His wife, Sarah Murray, helped start the Vada Murray Foundation in his honor. On Saturday, Pretzel Bell Restaurant in Ann Arbor (226 S. Main Street) will host the family friendly FUNdraising tailgate to raise funds and awareness for The Vada Murray Endowed Fund for Cancer Research through the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center.
The event starts at 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 24 and will continue on through the Michigan-Ohio State game ─ kickoff at noon. The suggested donation is $25 per person and $100 per family. The event will include game squares, a silent auction, 50-50 raffle, raffle prizes, a kids’ area, and T-shirts will be available for sale.
For more information, visit www.vadamurray.com where you can register in advance and become a sponsor for the event.
For Vada Murray, in the last desperate weeks of his life, he hoped for the next new cancer drug that might keep him alive a little longer. Or, better yet, a lot longer. Long enough to see his three children grow a bit taller. Long enough to give his wife, Sarah, a few more hugs before their 10th wedding anniversary. Long enough to celebrate more anniversaries and more birthdays with his family.
For Sarah Murray these days, creating new hope for others is the way she wants her husband to be remembered. It is also the way she hopes will bring meaning to her and Vada’s children’s deep sense of loss. His children were only 11, 8 and 6 when he passed away.
The Vada Murray Fund for Cancer Research at the University of Michigan, where Vada was treated, was created for his friends, family, and colleagues to join in this fight for hope. Sarah hopes to bring the day closer when new drugs will mean more life for people like Vada, who had so many reasons to want to live.
“That’s where his hope was in those last weeks - what’s coming, the silver bullet,” Sarah recalls. “There were a lot of things he wanted to be here for.”
Vada was among the first 300 patients in the world to participate in a clinical trial for crizotinib through Dr. Shirish Gadgeel.
“It is because of patients like Vada who participated in those early ALK trials, we have advanced the field where we now have four approved drugs, and another expected to be approved in a few months,” Dr. Gadgeel said. “The average survival of patients like Vada has been transformed from eight to nine months to about 36 months. Among patients who were able to receive 2 ALK inhibitors, about 70 percent are alive beyond four years.” These odds are significantly greater than what they were when Vada was diagnosed when the chances of survival were grim.
Vada Murray grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and played safety at the University of Michigan from 1986- 1990 under Bo Schembechler. He turned down an opportunity to play in the NFL, choosing to serve as a police officer.
“He was a cop’s cop, a man’s man, just a great, solid guy,” Ann Arbor’s former police chief Barnett Jones, who was Vada’s instructor at the police academy, recalled. “He had such passion for his job that he wanted to stay in Ann Arbor instead of becoming a pro. He learned the city. He learned the bad guys. He’d go out and find them. He was fair. He had the tenacity of a good cop. I had the fortunate responsibility to be his boss.”
Chris Wooley, a colleague at the Ann Arbor Police Department and a close friend, has fond memories of Vada. “If he was in your corner, you were friends for life,” Wooley said “We rode together as partners for a couple of years. Watching Vada deteriorate from cancer was one of the toughest things I’ve ever seen. The toll that cancer takes on our body - physically, mentally, emotionally - it’s gut wrenching.”
Vada was fierce about everything he did. He was an intense, but gentle person, and a fiercely loyal friend. He was fierce about battling cancer. The gifts made to The Vada Murray Endowed Fund for Cancer Research through the Rogel Cancer Center at the University of Michigan can bring more intensity to this fight.
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