— Nazmi Albadawi and Deah Barakat first met around eight years ago as high schoolers playing recreation basketball together in Raleigh. Nazmi, a soccer standout at Athens Drive High School, noticed that Deah, a student a Broughton High, was extremely friendly … until he stepped onto the court.

“What really drew me to Deah was how great a guy he was but also how competitive he was, especially when it came to sports,” Albadawi remembers. “When we played basketball, he went from being the nicest guy to the most competitive guy.”

The last time Albadawi saw his good friend Deah was late January at another athletic competition, this time a charity flag football tournament in Chapel Hill. With defeat seemingly imminent, Deah snared a last-minute interception in the endzone to advance his team to the tournament semifinals.

“Everyone on his team just ran and dogpiled him,” Albadawi recalls. “It was awesome.”

Two weeks later Deah, his wife Yusor Abu-Salha and her sister Razan Abu-Salha were shot and killed in a Chapel Hill apartment complex. Albadawi was among the nearly 300 stunned friends and family who gathered inside the clubhouse at Finley Forest Condominiums the night of Feb. 10 to hear the tragic news.

“It’s still hard to process,” Albadawi admits.

This Sunday, Albadawi and Deah’s friendship will again intersect sports when the Carolina RailHawks host a friendly match against Korean side Seoul E-Land FC at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary. Albadawi, now entering his second season with the RailHawks, is joining with the Triangle Soccer Fanatics (TSF) supporters club to hold a fundraiser in honor of all three victims, now referred to collectively as “Our Three Winners.”

“We wanted to do [the fundraiser] soon, because people forget quickly,” said Amy Garner, a TSF officer. “So we thought the preseason game that’s going to be held in the main stadium would be a nice venue for it.”

A banner created by TSF member Walt Tallman, patterned after the Our Three Winners silhouette logo, will hang near the WakeMed Soccer Park box office before the match. TSF members and RailHawks players will sign the banner, and anyone attending the match willing to donate will also have an opportunity to sign. TSF members will circulate throughout the grandstands before and during the match collecting donations, and this week the group posted a page on their website soliciting online donations, as well.

Proceeds from this weekend’s fundraiser will go to the Syrian Dental Relief, an online fundraising effort Deah, a second-year student at the UNC School of Dentistry, launched last September to provide dental services to Syrian children in refugee camps in Turkey. Deah, along with other dentistry students and school faculty, planned to travel to Rihaniya, Turkey this summer to provide dental care and supplies.

In the wake of Our Three Winners’ deaths, the Syrian Dental Relief’s original fundraising target of $20,000 has ballooned to nearly a half-million dollars provided by donors from around the world. According to Garner, that will enable the relief fund to massively expand its scope.

“Now that the fund has nearly $500,000 and growing, they’re able to take more people overseas, including actual dentists instead of just dental students from UNC, bring more supplies and expand to more locations beyond the original [refugee] camps.”

Deah, Yusor and Razan’s parents and siblings are expected to attend Sunday’s match and take part in a post-match ceremony honoring Our Three Winners. It’ll be the latest step by the families to continue the philanthropy of their late loved ones. Indeed, less than two weeks before their deaths, Deah and Yusor gathered in downtown Durham to help hand out food and dental supplies to the homeless.

Even after Yusor and Razan’s death, their family enlisted Albadawi to deliver leftover food brought to their house by friends to a local food bank.

"When I took [the food] to the food bank, they asked me who it was from,” Albadawi says. “I told them it was from the Chapel Hill victims’ family. The workers there were amazed at how they could be thinking about people in need when they’re in need right now.”

For Albadawi, spearheading this fundraiser with TSF is a labor of love and commemoration. By virtue of his longtime friendship with their brother Yousef, Albadawi actually knew Yusor and Razan before ever meeting Deah. However, his rapport with Deah continued after both enrolled at NC State. Deah, an ambitious yet gregarious student, would regularly gather friends to go watch Albadawi’s soccer matches with the Wolfpack.

In early December, Yusor was accepted into UNC’s dental school where she planned to join her husband. Later that month, Albadawi attended Deah and Yusor’s wedding, with Razan, a student at NC State’s College of Design, serving as maid of honor.

These and many other memories—some that began playing video games in a friend’s living room, others on Raleigh rec hardwood—are what Albadawi wants to commemorate. And can’t forget.

“I still feel like the next time I go to Yousef’s house his sisters will be there,” Albadawi says. “I still feel like the next time I go to a basketball tournament Deah be there.”