Nahiem Alleyne, UConn receive good luck tweet from young fan battling rare disease

“Hey Nahiem this is Dani Jo, I hope you’re doing okay,” Dani Jo said in a video posted to the Hearl’s family twitter account.

“Congratulations on making to the national championship game. Good luck tomorrow night against San Diego State. Nahiem, we’ll all be watching you on TV. Go win that national championship tomorrow. I miss you and I love you and I’ll talk to you later. Go Huskies.”

Dani Jo has been a fan of Alleyne’s since his Virginia Tech days, when he always went out of his way to greet, talk, hug and take pictures with Dani Jo following home games. When he transferred to UConn, Dani Jo made sure to let Alleyne know she would continue to be his biggest fan.

Directed to the UConn men’s basketball program (@UConnMBB), the Hearl family tweeted, in part, “Nahiem is a great player but an even better person. His family is nothing but [heart emoji]. #4 is one of a kind. Please take good care of him for me. He likes [high fives] and big hugs after the game.”

Dani Jo has Hirschsprung disease, a condition which nerves are missing from sections of the intestines, preventing waste from moving through the body. This has been the cause of Dani Jo’s challenged cognitive development, Joey Hearl told CT Insider last year, and is assumed by doctors to be a result of the disruption of oxygen flow to her brain many times as a child. 

She cannot sleep without a ventilator due to a rare gene mutation and has had two-thirds of her intestines removed.

Due to her disease, trips to Virginia Tech’s Cassell Coliseum were more rigorous for Dani Jo than the average Hokie fan. The Hearls would drive an hour and a half from Mount Airy, N.C. to Blacksburg, Va. with all of Dani Jo’s oxygen tanks, ventilators and suction machines to watch Virginia Tech compete. This made Alleyne’s friendship with Dani Jo all the more personal.

“Nahiem religiously, every time he walks out of that locker room and sees her, comes over and asks how she’s doing, how school has been, high fives, pictures,” said Dani Jo’s father, Joey Hearl. “The amazing thing about this kid is he could score 25 points or go 1-for-10 from the floor, but he knows that Dani Jo is going to be waiting for him on the edge of the court and he always comes back out to give her a hug. It’s special, man.”

The Hearls said in their tweet they will be watching the Huskies tonight as they compete against San Diego State for the chance to win the program’s fifth national title.