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Shannon Mashinchi and Nat Borchers pose with the scarf on Sunday that was made in honor of her son, Javad.

(John Canzano)

We covered the ground rules. No cheering. No Timbers Army chants. No autograph requests. This was a working press box, after all. What I failed to tell Shannon Mashinchi on Sunday at the Timbers-Sounders match was, "No Toy Giraffes Allowed."

So naturally she pulled one out of her backpack as the match began, and positioned it facing the field at Providence Park. There was nothing I could do about it. Nothing but ask, "What's with the little giraffe?"

"The thing about giraffes is that they shouldn't be able to do what they do. Their bodies just shouldn't," Mashinchi said. "But they do."

Portland thumped Seattle 4-2 on Sunday. Mashinchi -- and that three-inch plastic giraffe -- sat beside me in the press box. But there was so much more going on here.

Media have infiltrated the Timbers Army regularly over the years. As story lines go, it's low-hanging fruit. You stand. You observe the chants. You take in the stadium flavor, report about what it's like to spend an afternoon shoulder to shoulder with a rabid pack of sweating, cheering soccer-lovers. It's been done. But what hasn't been done until Sunday was to pluck a die-hard member of the Timbers Army from the first row of Providence Park, scarves and all, and plop them down in the center of a sterile press box for an in-game study.

Welcome to the Mashinchi Experiment.

She grew up in Portland and works as a math teacher at Reynolds High School. She hikes, drinks cider, loves the Timbers and is the mother of four children, including a 14-year old boy named Javad who happens to love giraffes.

"He never took to anything like he took to the giraffe," she said. "It's his thing."

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Javad was born in the morning of Nov. 1, 2001 at Providence Hospital in Portland. He was a scheduled cesarean section. What Mashinchi remembers most about the morning was that he didn't cry. Something wasn't right. Everyone knew it. A day later, Javad was transferred to Legacy Emanuel's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Mytubular Myopathy, the diagnosis eventually came.

It's a rare muscular disorder. Fewer than 1,000 people in the United States have it. And so the next 13 years of Javad's life would be filled with nurses, feeding tubes, doctors, a tracheotomy, emergency room visits, lots of love and laughs, too.

Also, that giraffe.

"The best part of any of this," his mother said, "is that at the end, I get to be Javad's mother. I love that kid."

Last March something new happened. Javad had a seizure. Mashinchi was at work when she got a frantic call from her older son who said, "Javad isn't responsive. He's not responding."

Mashinchi instructed him to call 911, and then she bolted toward home. As she drove, and listened on her cellular telephone, her children performed CPR on their brother. He was in cardiac arrest. Four minutes passed.

Nothing.

"It was horrible," she said. "There were not very many times in his life that I thought, 'He could die.' But this was one. And all I could think about is that I wasn't there.

"If that time should ever come I want to be there, holding him."

Randall Children's Hospital deserves a lot of credit for saving Javad that day. Doctors cooled his body down for several days. The action preserved his brain function. They can't be sure how the seizure will affect him long-term. He's still not able to use his hands. He may never fully recover. But in a couple of weeks Javad heads to the eighth grade at Rock Creek Middle School.

"I've learned to be OK with everything and to let go of some things," his mother said. "He's going to take seventh-grade science instead of eighth-grade science. I'm OK with that."

It's a credit to the doctors, nurses and medical advances that helped save him. Also, the family that loves him so much. But it's the Timbers, Mashinchi said, who helped pull them all through the ordeal as a diversion. Javad was in a coma for nearly six months, and his recovery felt like it coincided with the Timbers run last season to an MLS Cup. As they stood tall and found their rhythm, so too, did Javad, Mashinchi said.

"In a weird way," she said, "it felt as if we were in it together."

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Nat Borchers ruptured his achilles tendon in July. He arrived at Providence Park on Sunday and sat on the suite level with a pair of crutches beside him waiting for kick. When Mashinchi saw Borchers through a window as she walked toward the press box, she said, "I need to give him something."

There's a scarf designed for Javad by another member of the Timbers Army. It's red and white. One side has, "Stand Tall," on it. The other says, "If you fall down, get up." And this is how a mother came to stand alongside an injured Timbers defender, telling him, "Thank you for what you did for us. I think you need this now."

Borchers stood tall and held the scarf. He told Mashinchi that he has a godson afflicted with a muscular disorder. He's involved in raising awareness and funds for research. And as he accepted the gift, he asked if he might ask her a question.

It was this: "Would it be OK if I visited Javad sometime?"

Her eyes went glassy.

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The press box served chicken and waffles before the game. Mashinchi dined and talked with other reporters who cover the team. Then, there was a cinnamon roll at halftime. Also there are air conditioning units, a 48-inch television monitor with replays in front of her and statistics hand delivered to her seat at halftime.

I wanted to know what Mashinchi thought of the juxtaposition. She was in the press box, not the mosh pit now. She and Borchers had already delivered all the levity needed for one afternoon. I felt a little funny asking, "Well, what did you think?" especially with that giraffe looking off toward the dancing, cheering Timbers Army as if it was missing out. I asked anyway.

"You can see the whole field up here," she said. "It feels a little removed. You watch the game. It's different than being a part of the game.

"Still, that Nat Borchers moment made my year."

Before the match started and the Timbers opened a 4-0 halftime lead on a warm afternoon Mashinchi walked to the far end of the press box. She nearly walked straight onto the ESPN broadcast set during their pre-game show. Not because she wanted on television or was thrown by the informal appearance of the broadcast team, which wore jackets and button-up shirts -- along with shorts not visible off camera.

Rather, Mashinichi walked there because she was trying to get the best angle to snap an overhead photograph of the Timbers Army. She wanted the perfect shot so she could send it to her friends down below.

She said: "Man, we have no idea what we look like down there."

-- @JohnCanzanoBFT