Steve Gleason: The Full Story
Steve Gleason played for The New Orleans Saints from 2000-2008. As a counter-culture athlete who spent his off-season adventuring in third world countries, he will always be remembered for his blocked punt on the night the Louisiana Superdome reopened for the first time after Hurricane Katrina.
In January 2011, Steve was diagnosed with ALS, considered a terminal neuromuscular disease. Beyond his faith that there is a solution to healing, it is his mission to show that people can not only live but thrive after this diagnosis. In doing so, he intends to inspire others to do the same.
With that in mind, Steve and his wife, Michel, formed Team Gleason to help him accomplish those goals and more. Team Gleason is a charitable 501c3 non-profit corporation with the mission to:
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Help provide people with ALS, other neuromuscular diseases, or injuries with leading-edge technology, equipment, and services.
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To create a global conversation about ALS to ultimately find solutions and an end to the disease.
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To raise public awareness toward ALS by providing and documenting extraordinary life adventures for people with ALS.
Steve on a rock in Lake Tekapo, New Zealand, during he and Michel’s 6 month honeymoon.
Steve’s story and mission have been told countless times throughout the media. The NFL Network, ESPN, HBO, ABC, CBS, CNN and many local outlets have all been inspired to share the Team Gleason story in many ways. He was featured in 2 Peter King interviews during Super Bowl pre-game shows, NFL’s A Football Life, Good Morning America, HBO’s Real Sports, and more. He was named one of 2 Sports Illustrated’s Inspirations of the Year in 2014 and has been a keynote speaker for Microsoft and at 2 United Nations sponsored Social Innovation Summits. Steve was the featured personality on the highly praised and reviewed Microsoft commercial during the 2014 Super Bowl. It has been viewed over 3 million times since airing. In 2015, both the US House of Representatives and the Senate unanimously passed “The Steve Gleason Act” to ensure the availability of life sustaining communication devices. The Act was signed into law on July 31, 2015, but had a 3 year sunset. In 2018, the Steve Gleason Enduring Voices Act was submitted to replace the original law and passed in February.
In 2016, Steve's film, 'Gleason' was released to outstanding reviews. The film was heralded at the Sundance Film Festival and premiered across the country to equally impressive reviews. Variety called the production, "an emotional powerhouse" and reviews continue to echo that sentiment as the film becomes widely available. The film was shown in theaters across the country, streamed through major services, and was in the top 15 films considered for 2016's Academy Awards.
Steve successfully challenged Microsoft during an annual hackathon to create an “Ability Drive” interface that would allow people who are physically disabled to navigate their power wheelchairs with their eyes.
With one of Steve and Team Gleason's focuses being on life sustaining and enhancing technology, Steve has lead the charge to help innovate for and promote innovative assistive technology. In 2015, Steve challenged Microsoft to create a method for people who are completely motionless to navigate their power wheelchairs with their eyes. Not only did the tech giant complete the prototype, Steve and Team Gleason partnered with Tolt Technologies to make the technology available through all wheelchair manufacturers. They are working collaboratively to make it widely available to all who need this liberating technology. As a result of Steve's inspiration, Microsoft also made eye-tracking technology part of Windows products across the globe. Access to this technology with the most used operating system in the world speaks volumes to the impact Steve's challenge has had.
In addition to Steve's focus on technology, equipment, and adventures, Steve and Team Gleason hosted a Summit in New Orleans in 2014. Leading researchers met with patients, caregivers, and all ALS stakeholders for the first time in a single meeting. The call to action was to "think differently" and create a plan to ultimately end ALS in our lifetime. The result was what is now recognized as the single largest coordinated and collaborative ALS research project in the world, Answer ALS. Nearly 2 dozen institutions, 1000 patients, and 20 trillion data points are key to the project that will define the unknown pathways that will help lead to treatments or finally a cure for ALS.
In 2019, Steve was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. The honor is the highest civilian award Congress can bestow and must be voted on by 2/3rds of the House and Senate and signed by the President. Steve was the 163rd person in US history to receive the Congressional Gold Medal.
But, the most significant accomplishment for Steve and Michel since Steve’s diagnosis was their decision to have children. In November 2011, Rivers Gleason was born and in 2018, they welcomed their 2nd child, Gray into the world. When Steve was diagnosed, he famously said there would be “No White Flags”. This has become the Team Gleason mantra, but it is most important when applied to Steve as a father.
The Gleason Family’s 2022 Christmas card, doing blindfolded meditation and yoga.
On January 15, 2020, Steve received the Congressional Gold Medal in a Capitol Hill ceremony hosted by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders and attended by honored guests on January 15. Steve Gleason’s Congressional Gold Medal is in recognition of his incredible achievements, inspiring many on the football field and now helping those living with ALS and their families live productively and purposefully.
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