The New Orleans Saints are making the news for all of the right reasons these days. Not long after defensive end Mitchell Loewen helped save a man in a trapped SUV, punter Thomas Morstead did an insane amount of pull-ups for a good cause.
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With just a couple of days before New Orleans players report to training camp to officially kick off the 2018 NFL season, the veteran punter did 418 pull-ups in an hour and raised $62,000 in a fundraiser to help a member of the Saints family who has been battling cancer since 2015.
For a man who makes a living with his legs, the 6-foot-4 Morstead can sure throw down in the weight room.
Dominating the Ochsner Sports Performance Center, Morstead pulled his way for a school fund for the children of former Saints employees Chris Cordaro, who was diagnosed with neuroendocrine carcinoma in the pancreas, liver, bone, spine, scalp and multiple lymph nodes.
Cordaro was working as a sales executive for the Saints when was diagnosed.
"Chris got diagnosed three years ago," Morstead said to NewOrleansSaints.com. "I met him a number of times and just figured I'd go visit him in the hospital. He had a really bad diagnosis - I think he had two or three months to live, three years ago. Call it what you want; I call it a miracle.
"He went into remission and he's had a few years now with his family just to be with them and go on vacation. A little bit of borrowed time, almost. He's not doing well now and you just meet people sometimes that kind of impact you. We've gotten super close, we've had some pretty vulnerable conversations. He's just been really faithful.
"I don't know. When you just see somebody handling something so adverse in such an awesome way, that was kind of the pull to want to do something. I was talking with one of my priest friends here in town and he just said, 'If you feel called to do anything, you need to do it.' Me and my wife are doing a donation, which kicked it off. Just wanted people to know that I had skin in the game, I wasn't just asking for people's money, that it was important to me. It's important to a lot of people in this Saints building."
Several high-profile Saints executives showed up, including owner Gayle Benson, general manager Mickey Loomis and head coach Sean Payton.
To top it all off, the 32-year-old Saints punter helped Cordaro do a few pull-ups, and you can just tell the type of bond these two have.
"It means the world," Cordaro said. "This guy is top-notch. He does so much for so many people. Just to be on his radar means a ton."
Morstead, a Houston, Texas native who was drafted by the Saints in 2009, is no stranger to charitable acts with his What You Give Will Grow foundation, and this latest act will most certainly resonate with the team, community, the league, and beyond.
