There has been a huge outpouring of support for a CF Montreal coach diagnosed with brain cancer.
Though the multiple surgeries and chemotherapy treatments have been taking their toll on Jason Di Tullio, the 37-year-old says the encouragement he’s received from his family and the entire soccer community has been giving him strength.
“There are lots of ups and downs,” Di Tullio told Global News in an interview.
“I have some really good days, and some really rough days, both mentally and physically.“
The RDP native said he has lived and breathed soccer since childhood. He worked his way up from local leagues to playing for the Montreal Impact, winning a league championship in 2004. He got into coaching after injuries forced him to retire from playing. Nowadays, he’s an assistant coach with CF Montreal, honouring a promise he made to his parents when he dropped out of college.
“I promised them that I was going to make something out of it,” he explained.
Di Tullio is now in a battle more difficult than anything he ever faced on the field. In June, he was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer with no cure and a very low survival rate.
“It was tough, one of the toughest moments. I replay that conversation over and over in my head,” he said, recounting the moment at doctor told him he had brain cancer.
The diagnosis has been tough on his whole family.
“When I’m with my son, we laugh, we cry,” said Giulia Claudia Garofano, Jason’s mother. “I try not to cry in front of him.”
He’s had multiple brain surgeries, chemotherapy treatments, and has a machine attached to him.
“It sends electric fields that go to where the tumour was and it kind of helps it not mutate,” he explained.
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Anyone who knows Di Tullio knows the words he lives by: la grinta. It’s a sort of nickname and motto.
“It’s fight. It’s perseverance. It’s never giving up,” he explained. “It’s just figuring it out.”
Di Tullio said he was never the most skilled soccer player but always succeeded because of his drive and grit. It’s something he preaches as a coach, and it’s a rallying call for those who support him.
The FC Montreal academy chanted “grinta” in a video they sent to encourage him.
Not long after his diagnosis, old teammates from his 2004 championship team surprised him with a party near his home.
“I couldn’t stop crying,” his mother recounted.
In July, he got a hero’s welcome when he attended a game at Saputo Stadium.
In late November, he felt well enough to help coach FC Montreal in the lead-up to their match against Toronto FC for the Canadian championship.
“I really came at my rhythm, which wasn’t easy because I’m a man with a lot of pride,” he said. “I wasn’t 100 per cent, but they made me feel that Jason Di Tullio that’s not 100 per cent is better than Jason Di Tullio that’s not around.”
With him in their corner, Montreal defeated Toronto to win the Canadian championship.
“You think about, ‘will you ever have an opportunity again to lift up a cup?’ All of a sudden two weeks later, you’re lifting up a cup and walking around Saputo Stadium. I cherish those moments,” Di Tullio told Global News.
This week, some of his former teammates launched a GoFundMe campaign for him, raising more than $100,000 in just a few days.
“It was hard because we’re a family with a lot of pride, but as I was going through this process and through this journey, I realized that staying alive is very expensive,” he said.
Aside from daily expenses, he wants to use the money to fund research or to travel to participate in clinical trials.
“I have a lot of faith in him and he is going to make it. There’s too much around him, just too much love. He’s going to make it,” said his mother.
Di Tullio feels with the strength of his community behind him, he can beat the disease.
“People say ‘we have to win this game.’ Well, I’ve got to win this one and I can’t do it without my wolf pack.”
You can find the GoFundMe here.