Alabama’s Nick Saban probably doesn’t mind chomping into an orange when he wins the Orange Bowl but the Crimson Tide head coach took a big bite out of a different kind of citrus fruit in order to raise awareness for a child’s charity.
Jumping on board the latest viral video craze to draw attention to a cause, Saban happily bit into a (very sour) lemon this week as part of the appropriately named “Lemon Face Challenge.” The reason? To call attention to 11-year-old Alabama native Aubreigh Nicholas and her Facebook group called Aubreigh’s Army. The group is seeking to inform people and raise money for the rare brain tumor Nicholas was diagnosed with called Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, or DIPG for short.
Here’s the video posted on the group’s page:
DIPG is a devastating diagnosis for both children affected by it and their parents as it is inoperable so kudos to the normally stern-faced Saban for taking the time away from spring practice to make the video. A YouCaring page was also setup for Nicholas’ medical expenses and has raised nearly $40,000 at the time of this writing of a $50,000 goal.
Hopefully Saban’s video is enough to help push that total over the top in the coming days as the Facebook video has zoomed past 100,000 views in just the short time since it was posted.