Ex-UNLV soccer star Keith raises funds for 6-year-old’s third kidney transplant

This is how the foundation founded by former UNLV soccer star Simon Keith describes its annual golf tournament, held Friday under idyllic conditions and scenic backdrops at Revere Golf Course in Henderson:

"A full house of drinking beer, smoking cigars, a live band and maybe some some golf if we get time."

If you add hostesses in snug referee shirts and fishnet stockings, that pretty much covers it.

But that's just the superficial part you tell your buddies stuck in an office about. At its heart, which is a good way to put it, given Simon Keith is among the world's longest surviving heart transplant recipients, is raising awareness in the Nevada Donor Network and educating organ transplant recipients.

This year it also was about a young couple from the sleepy Los Angeles suburb of Moorpark, Calif. — Shawn and Heidi Hoven, and their sons, Ian and Kadin.

The little guys are totally lovable and precocious and like to hug each other. The hugging part is something they'll probably grow out of, though I didn't tell their mom. Ian is healthy. Big brother Kadin has health issues that began the day he was born six years ago. But if you didn't know his story, or lift his shirt to see the scars, it would be hard to tell.

Kadin needs a kidney transplant. Another kidney transplant. Because the first two didn't take. This happens a lot when the body's immune system receives a part not covered by the warranty.

Kadin's antibody defenders rejected the kidney he received from his father. After his mother donated one of her kidneys, allowing Kadin to be moved up the list a little bit, he received a second transplanted kidney. That one was rejected, too.

So now he's in a holding pattern, waiting on another surgery. He's back on dialysis, 10 hours a day, every other day. The doctors at Cedar Sinai and UCLA Medical Center have put him on medication they hope will allow his system to accept a third kidney, when one becomes available.

"I feel like I'm the star of the show," the little guy said Friday as assorted Canadian pals of Simon Keith's and other amateur golfers with healthy and charitable hearts wrote out checks, and popped open cans of cold Bud Light, and stretched out by placing Big Berthas behind their backs and bending backward, like the guy in the Geico commercial on TV.

Precocious Kadin said by this time next year he hopes to have a new kidney that's permanent, because the ones he was born with are pretty much shot. His words, not mine.

The hostesses in the snug referee shirts and fishnet stockings soon sidled over to hug him and pose for photos. Kadin smiled some more and appeared to be enjoying himself, but not quite as much as when his brother hugged him. He's young. He'll learn.

His mom smiled, too. Heidi Hoven's little guy is just so precious and mature for his age. But when she tried to speak, you could tell she had been crying.

"I think there's a reason it happened," the young kindergarten teacher said. "Obviously, we don't know the reason. But maybe Kadin's going to change the future. And maybe that's why he's on his way to his third (kidney transplant). Maybe with the antibody he has, he can help find a cure for it."

Shawn Hoven said he and his wife didn't learn about Kadin's kidney problems until three days after he was born. Their little guy also had a hole in his lung and heart issues; those were more pressing concerns.

Kadin went on dialysis when he was only 5 days old.

"It was surreal, but by the same token, we beat the respiratory thing, we beat the heart problems," said his father, who works in the commercial bank unit for JPMorgan Chase. "We got him through surgeries; he's on dialysis. He's doing OK for a kid with this kind of medical stuff. We can do this."

Simon Keith can relate to the positive attitude when sometimes it doesn't seem warranted. He could do this, too. He's still doing it. You should see the pills he takes each day. It's like swallowing a drug store.

"It's really about these kids," said the 50-year-old Las Vegas businessman and former first-round draft pick of indoor soccer's Cleveland Crunch, whose own incredible transplant odyssey recently was featured on "ESPN: 60."

"We've got Kadin out here today, and it's a tough time. We're here to help these kids and their families. When you see their faces and you talk to 'em, the sense of joy they have when they get (a donated organ), it's a goosebump moment, right? It's good stuff."

A few minutes later, after a man made an announcement on a bullhorn, some friendly Canadians and other generous people puttered away on carts for some beer drinking and cigar smoking. It appeared they would, indeed, make some time for golf, and later on Friday there would be more beer drinking and cigar smoking and a silent auction at a charity dinner.

As he was puttering away, Simon Keith told a reporter to jump in his cart. He was holding a small sheet of folded paper. It was a check made out to the Simon Keith Foundation from the philanthropic Engelstad Family Foundation.

The check was for $500,000.

That was a goosebump moment, too.

— Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.