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Brooken Hansen raises money in fight against type 1 diabetes

Posted at 11:42 PM, Aug 04, 2018
and last updated 2018-08-04 23:42:26-04

GOWEN, Mich -- 14-year old Brooken Hansen has been living with type 1 diabetes for 7 years, but he doesn't let it slow him down.

"You can't do a lot of the stuff that other kids can do" Brooken said. "But you can do pretty much anything if you put your mind to it."

Brooken excels at baseball as a third baseman and pitcher. He will be a freshman this fall at Greenville High School but will have a little more on his plate than most kids his age.

"It is a struggle everyday" Brad Hansen, Brooken's father said. "It is something new everyday, he has had a great attitude with it, his attitude has always been it's just a bump in the road. He has to check his blood sugar everyday he has to take insulin everyday, he wears a pump. Not going to lie about it, it stinks but he is a fourteen year old boy and I think he does a great job with it."

Saturday almost 200 hundred people gathered for the 4th annual JDRF golf outing, it's a day Brooken looks forward to all year.

"My day used to have poker nights when I was like three years old they all used to come over and they all used to see me and they were like, dude your so small, can't wait until you grow up. Now I'm like fourteen so they are all here at my golf outing and it's cool that I get to talk to them" Brooken said.

One the of attendees Brooken likes the most is Chris Kaman, who played 13 years in the NBA and who Brooken has known for a long time.

"I look up to him because that is still a really big challenge that he had to go through from college to the NBA" Brooken said. "He had to make a couple changes to his life to leave his family for a little bit to go into the NBA. I bet it was scary of course but it's like leaving your family to go play somewhere and go big."

"Chris is a great role model" Brad Hansen said. "He has been through a lot with his struggles with ADHD and what not and yeah he's away from his family all the time because of the NBA travel, because of his businesses and whatnot. If there was a better person for Brooken to look up to I don't know who it is."

Brooken raised a lot of money to send to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.