During Indiana football's game against the Washington Huskies on Oct. 26, 2024, Colts cornerback Kenny Moore II sent out a post on X congratulating Hoosier defensive back D'Angelo Ponds on his second interception of the day.
On Nov. 10, Moore wore candy striped gloves during the Colts' game against the Buffalo Bills, the day after the Hoosiers beat the defending national champion Michigan Wolverines. He wore the gloves again the following week in the Colts' win over the New York Jets.
Moore is a native of Georgia. He graduated from Valdosta State University. He doesn't seem to have any connection to Indiana University, except for the fact that he lives and plays football in Indianapolis, about an hour north of Bloomington. So, what is he doing supporting – and representing – the Hoosiers?
It all goes back to 2018, and a little boy named Mason.
***
On Nov. 11, 2018, the Colts beat the Jacksonville Jaguars 29-26 at Lucas Oil Stadium. Quarterback Andrew Luck completed 21-of-29 passes for 285 yards and three touchdowns and Moore – in his second season in the NFL – had one of the best games of his young career with six solo tackles, three passes defensed and one crucial forced fumble late in the fourth quarter to seal the win.
But for one little boy in the stands, his favorite part of the game was seeing wide receiver T.Y. Hilton lead the team with three receptions for 77 yards.
Hilton was seven-year-old Mason Garvey's favorite Colts player, and all Mason really wanted was for his favorite player to have a good game and the Colts to win, and he got both of his wishes. But the Garveys almost didn't even make it to the game.
Mason had been diagnosed with Stage Four embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma (ERMS) – a malignant soft tissue tumor – that September and was going through chemotherapy and radiation treatments that zapped his energy and required a variety of special equipment and materials to keep his vitals up. The Garveys didn't know if they had everything necessary to make sure Mason would get through the game or if he would even feel well enough to enjoy it, and almost called it off.
But that morning, Mason woke up with enough energy to get up and go. So, the Garveys made the 30-minute drive into Indianapolis and settled into their seats with plenty of time before kickoff.
Sitting right behind them were Levar Johnson and his wife – and while Mason didn't know who Moore was, the Johnsons definitely did. Moore trained with Levar, who was the head football coach at Cardinal Ritter High School, out of college.
It was by pure chance – or, perhaps, fate – that the two families sat in back-to-back rows that day.
Johnson's wife quickly took note of Mason and his family – the boy's uncontainable excitement over seeing Hilton and Luck, of course, but also the precise organization of everything required to feed Mason. She struck up a conversation with Mason's mother, Heather, and over the course of the game learned about Mason's condition and his treatment. Before the families said their goodbyes, she told Heather she knew a Colts player who would be willing to visit Mason, if that was something Mason would be interested in. Heather, overwhelmed with emotion, teared up as she accepted the offer.
Moore learned about Mason later that night, when he and the Johnsons were out at dinner, and didn't hesitate in committing to visit him when he had the chance.
"Yeah, I think I'll be able to go check on him," he said.
***
Moore still remembers the day he met "Mighty" Mason: Nov. 30, 2018.
He remembers the timid, reserved little boy he met at Riley Children's Hospital, who didn't brighten up until the two of them started doing Fortnite dances together. He remembers running offensive plays in the lobby of the hospital, pretending to be Andrew Luck handing the ball off to Mason, who was acting as Colts running back Marlon Mack, for a touchdown – "he was geeked then," Moore remembered.
He remembers calling Mason "little bro" when they met and introducing himself simply as "Kenny," and how Mason called him "bro" when they said goodbye – and how that was the moment he knew he had to keep visiting the little boy.
Kenny, the only boy out of seven children in his family, never had a brother. Neither did Mason – until that moment.
"It was perfect," Kenny said. "It was the perfect piece to the puzzle."
Over the course of the next few weeks Kenny continued to visit Mason at the hospital, playing Nintendo Switch with him and building a true friendship. Weeks turned into months, and the two formed the kind of brotherly bond they were both looking for.
"He was actually just like me," Kenny said, a small smile lighting up his face as he recalled Mason's personality. "We have this weird thing where, no matter how much we know you, whenever we see someone we know again it takes us a minute to warm up."
Every time Kenny visited Mason, he would be greeted with a simple "Oh, hey." No big deal, no hug, nothing. Even when Heather would tell her son, "That's just Kenny, it's okay!" Mason stayed reserved until Kenny started doing something Mason was also interested in – usually something to do with video games or sports. Then, he'd come out of his shell.
To Mason, he was never Colts' starting cornerback Kenny Moore II. He was just Kenny, his fun older brother. So, Mason treated Kenny as such.
"My relationship with the Colts was never a big thing to him," Kenny said. "We did some pretty cool stuff, but I think if we didn't do it, he would still be the same."
"(Mason) didn't like me in costume," he added. "He didn't like me in uniform until I took off the helmet."
A great deal of Kenny and Mason's relationship was built purely on chemistry – not necessarily something you'd expect between a seven-year-old kid and a 23-year-old professional athlete. But they just understood each other in a way few other people did, the way only brothers do.
"Just seeing what were his interests, how can I relate to him without having to ask him a lot of questions," Kenny explained. "How can I naturally relate to him? And naturally I did, honestly. The things that I like, he liked as well. I didn't have to do too much out of my comfort zone."
They both liked Drake, so they listened to Drake (Kenny made sure none of the songs he played had curse words in them). They both liked Madden, so they started playing together, even FaceTiming during the offseason while they went up against each other.
"It was just really funny to see how he liked music and how he liked sports or the video games we played," Kenny said. "He was well-versed."
An Indiana native, Mason was a fan of the Colts, Pacers and Indiana University Hoosiers. He loved watching and playing basketball, and he and Kenny grew close enough to the point where Kenny would go over to Mason's house so the two could play basketball in the driveway together.
"Watching March Madness and playing basketball in his driveway was definitely my most favorite," he said. "Because you know how personal it is for someone to come to your house, like that's a different type of relationship."
Kenny became so close with the Garveys that he even got his own room at their home so he could spend the night.
As he gained a brother, Kenny began to feel a sense of responsibility to watch over and take care of Mason. He and Mason started venturing out into the city together, making trips to the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, the Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center for a tour of the Colts' facility and Gainbridge Fieldhouse for Pacers games.
One of Moore's best memories is from sitting courtside at one of those Pacers games, but it has nothing to do with basketball.
Mason was a big fan of peanuts in the shell, and he would usually hand them off to whoever he was with at the game, knowing they would pop the peanuts and hand them back to him. When Kenny and Mason went alone, that became Kenny's responsibility – but this time, Mason wanted to do some of it on his own.
"I was popping peanuts for him, or he would do it himself – but this guy was making a mess on the court," Moore recalled with a grin spreading across his face. "I was like 'Oh my gosh, we've got a mess going, let's kick this under the seat.' It was so hilarious to tell his parents."
It's little moments like that that are some of the first to come to mind when Kenny thinks about Mason.
***
In the 11 months after his diagnosis, Mason underwent a total of 30 chemotherapy treatments and 43 radiation treatments. In August 2019, his scans came back clean and he was declared No Evidence of Disease (NED). But less than six weeks later, in October 2019, Mason relapsed. He was given a 30 percent chance of survival.
Mason turned nine on Oct. 27, 2019. He woke up that day feeling tired and weak from chemotherapy, but made it to Lucas Oil Stadium with his family for the Colts game that day. Because it wasn't just a normal birthday game – Mason was going to run out of the tunnel with Kenny during player introductions.
As the two stood in the tunnel awaiting their introduction, Mason started second-guessing everything. Frightened by the loud noises and overwhelmed by the environment, he wasn't sure he wanted to go out there anymore. But Kenny grabbed his right hand, looked down at him and told him, "We about to do this."
As soon as Mason got out on the field, all of his fear disappeared. He let go of Kenny's hand, extending his arms out to his sides like an airplane, and sprinted all the way to the 50-yard line with Kenny right alongside him.
"You can see how perfect it was," Kenny said. "It was pretty much his show at that point. He was doing his own thing, his airplane...it was a great moment to see."
Kenny could read Mason's excitement on his face, and while the "fella of little words" never told Kenny explicitly how much fun he had, he didn't have to. Kenny just knew.
That would be Mason's last birthday, as he passed away on June 25, 2020.
***
Before Mason passed, he and Kenny were gifted matching candy striped pants for Christmas – the same kind of iconic pants the Indiana men's basketball team wears during their pregame warmups. The two wore their pants all the time, and Kenny still wears his around his house on a regular basis over four years later.
Mason's "big time" IU fandom came from Kevin and Heather, who both went to college at IU and introduced Mason to the Hoosiers. It was a family thing, so it was only right for Mason to pass it along to his new brother.
He showed Kenny the world of Indiana basketball, and the two even made a couple trips to Bloomington to watch the Hoosiers play at historic Assembly Hall. Kenny was also introduced to the Indiana football team, a team Mason had unwavering faith in – even though Indiana had the most losses in college football history.
"No matter what team they played, when they were getting kicked every game, he was still like 'Oh, they're gonna win this game. They're gonna win this game,'" Kenny recalled with a grin. "And then I was like, 'Oh, let me go home and watch this, just in case!'"
And so, the Georgia kid became a Hoosier – and he remains one to this day.
"My support for the Hoosiers is from the Garveys, from Mason," Kenny explained. "That, as well as Indiana just being home."
Because the Garveys didn't just introduce Kenny to the Hoosiers down in Bloomington – they showed him what it meant to be a part of the Indiana family.
On Sept. 3, 2017, Kenny drove around Indianapolis with a realtor, trying to find an apartment for him to move into as he began his professional football career with the Colts. It was on that very day that Indiana began to feel like home. But it was November 2018, when Kenny gained a little brother and a second family, when he fully realized just how much Indiana really was his home.
"Having those families in Indiana just shows me how much home is – they were the family, without my personal family being here, like I still have a family here," he said of the Garveys.
Over the years, Kenny and the Garveys have remained as close as ever; Kevin, Heather and Mason's sister, Kinley, visit him in Florida during spring break and have been to his hometown of Valdosta multiple times. They all check in on each other on a regular basis, and rarely even talk about football.
"It's not anything I'm keeping up with or things that feel like a task," Kenny said. "Naturally, I check in on them. Naturally, they check in on me...and they're really checking on my spirit, they're checking on how's Kenny the person. It's just a natural thing that God has added into my life."
***
Since Mason's passing, Kenny has been vigilant in carrying on Mason's legacy. He has helped fundraise for the Mighty Mason Fund, which supports pediatric palliative care, collaborating with a local clothing store, The Shop Indy in 2021, on a "Mighty" shirt and paying tribute to the Mighty Mason Fund with his cleats that same year for the NFL's "My Cause, My Cleats" initiative. Kenny's own foundation, Love One Foundation, has a "Mighty Mason Collection"; 100 percent of all proceeds from the apparel go towards pediatric cancer research.
Even though their relationship was never centered around Kenny playing for the Colts, football has become one of the ways Kenny can always represent, and remember, Mason.
Every time he suits up for a game, Kenny puts stacks of colorful rubber bracelets on each wrist. He can go through all of them, one by one, and explain who they're connected to and when he got them; they all represent children who have battled, or are currently battling, cancer. Mason's "Mighty Mason" bracelets – Mason gave one to Kenny the day they met – adorn both wrists, with about a dozen other ones surrounding them. It's a way for Kenny to be sure he always has a piece of Mason with him on gameday.
But on days when Kenny misses Mason a little bit extra, he has another way to show his love: his gloves.
In 2020, after Mason's passing, Kenny was gifted a pair of cream and crimson, candy striped gloves by the Garveys, who knew one of the IU football equipment managers in Bloomington.
Kenny took one look at them, saw the candy stripes, and knew they were perfect. He couldn't not wear them. But these weren't just going to be his everyday gloves; he wanted to wear them with purpose. He wanted them to mean something.
When the Colts traveled to NRG Stadium to play the Houston Texans on Dec. 6, 2020, Kenny came out sporting his white gloves with candy striped palms, as well as candy striped cleats with "Mighty" painted on the red stripes. The Texans wore red, which factored into his decision, but he primarily wore the gloves because he knew Mason had toured NRG Stadium and played football with the Texans' mascot, Toro, when Mason was in Houston for treatment in 2019.
"Every time I go to Houston, I think about, you know, Mason was here," Kenny said with a sad smile. "He was doing the T.Y. (Hilton) dance and stuff like that, he was doing the dance that I do. Everything's just all connected."
When the Colts played a primetime game against the New York Jets in on Nov. 4, 2021, Kenny wore a "Mighty" shirt during pregame warmups and donned the gloves come gametime.
When he returned to NRG Stadium in 2021, Kenny once again wore Hoosier gloves – this time, red with candy striped palms, the same ones he's worn throughout the 2024 season.
It's pure coincidence that the 2024 Indiana football team is on a historic run – undefeated through their first 10 games – at the same time Kenny is wearing his Hoosier gloves. After all, he's been wearing them since 2020. But it certainly doesn't hurt to see his little brother's football team doing so well, especially because he's kept up with the program even after Mason passed away.
"It's amazing," Kenny said. "Just for the school and team itself...as well as seeing Mason and knowing Mason, and how much he wanted them to win."
"If my bro likes it, I like it too," he added. "That's just how it was."
So, whenever he puts on those candy striped gloves, Kenny thinks about his little bro. He thinks about all of the special memories they shared, how much light Mason brought into every room he walked into and how it felt like they were always meant to find each other.
"It felt like it was in divine to know them," he said.
That's the best way, maybe the only way, Kenny can put it. Everything about his relationship with Mason and the Garveys just felt like it was fated; from the Garveys meeting the Johnsons at that game in November, to discovering how similar he and Mason were similar, to the way they became a real family. And sometimes, there aren't enough words to truly encapsulate what those kinds of relationships mean.
Sometimes, all you can do is put on a pair of gloves or a couple of bracelets and remember all of the happy memories that come with them.
