Matt DeRiggi: Toms River North, Rutgers superfan's amazing story

Matt DeRiggi, a compulsive sports fan, has never been able to be a part of a team, at least in the traditional sense.

The 20-year-old Toms River resident and Ocean County College student has Duchenne muscular dystrophy or DMD, one of the most severe forms of the debilitating disease. The condition has left DeRiggi confined to a wheelchair since 2010 and off athletic rosters since he was a young boy.

That didn't stop DeRiggi from racing for a touchdown for his Toms River North High School Mariners as a freshman and another one at HighPoint Solutions Stadium, home of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights — with a little help from his friends. He’s also a fixture on the bench of Mariner basketball games and on the sidelines of Rutgers football games.

DeRiggi's group of friends includes Mohamed Sanu of the Atlanta Falcons and Todd Frazier of the New York Mets — pals that would make any sports fan jealous.

“We’ve always been a very sports-orientated family, and as Matthew got older and his disease was taking over his body more and more, it didn’t diminish his love for sports,” DeRiggi’s mother, Barbara, said. “It’s where he’s gotten a lot of friendships from.”

Overcoming the odds

When Matt was a young boy, his parents noticed his unique gait. They didn’t think much of it, but when the family moved to a new home that had stairs, obstacles that Matt couldn’t seem to maneuver, they realized that perhaps something was wrong.

It took some time, but Matt was eventually diagnosed with DMD in August 2005 when he was 7-years old.

“I always thought he walked like a penguin, so we started to get him tested orthopedically,” Barbara DeRiggi said. “My husband was born with hip dysplasia, so we thought it was maybe that, but those tests turned negative. We went through all different kinds of testing, tried leg braces, hip braces, and nothing seemed to work. We started testing him neurologically, and that’s when the Duchenne diagnosis came.”

DMD is a severe form of muscular dystrophy, a set of genetic diseases that weaken and break down skeletal muscles over time. Typically affecting boys, DMD commonly steals patients’ ability to walk at age 12, but a fall that broke his hip in 2010 has kept Matt in a wheelchair ever since.

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The disease may have kept Matt out of recreational sports as a child, but once he hit high school, he wasted no time making a huge impact on the field at Toms River North.

As a freshman, Matt attended every Mariner football game in the fall. His presence was so strongly felt that the Mariner athletic community devised a plan for Matt to score a touchdown in the last game of the season.

With a packed house watching, Matt was handed the ball and rolled his chair into the end zone from a few yards out. It was a touchdown that counted in the scorebook, Barbara DeRiggi recalled with pride.

“It feels pretty good to score a touchdown especially because I can’t really walk for a touchdown,” Matt said. “But getting through the end zone feels good.”

Since then, Matt has become as stalwart a presence at Toms River North games as any coach or player. He’s on the sidelines of every football game and can be found on the bench at the basketball games where his older brother, Tom, coaches the JV squad.

“It’s cool that he gets a shot to experience what it’s like being on the court or being on the field,” Tom DeRiggi said. “It’s a different kind of vibe, an aura, and for him to be able to experience that him more confidence and character.”

Tom DeRiggi says he his brother has set a new standard of inclusion.

“When other teams come down and play, you see a disabled or handicapped student sitting with other teams too, and I feel Matty was a pioneer,” Tom said. “It’s almost like he’s a trailblazer in that respect.”

‘It just started an avalanche’

Matt’s relationships and opportunities with professional athletes started rather innocuously and serendipitously. Through a family friend, Matt had the chance to meet Kevin Malast in 2007, a Manchester Township native and then a senior linebacker for Rutgers University.

Matt and Malast briefly hung out and even tossed a football around. Matt and the DeRiggi family blew Malast away that day.

“When I went there, I was expecting to hang out a little bit, meet the family and carry on, but little did I know the impact we would have on each other,” Malast said. “I remember being super impressed by the care they showed each other, how close they were and how they rallied around Matt."

The DeRiggis and Malast exchanged numbers as the future NFL linebacker promised to keep in touch. The meeting was special for all parties involved, but no one expected the chain of events that would come from the meeting.

“Through that relationship, it just started an avalanche,” Barbara DeRiggi said. “They gave him season tickets, he was on the field before games; he’s still at every game.”

Malast went back to campus and notified Greg Schiano, then head coach of the football program, that there was a kid with muscular dystrophy from Toms River who was a huge Rutgers fan. Maybe he could get tickets for a game or two.

But Matt got way more than that. Rutgers gave him season tickets and field access before every home game. They even allowed him to participate in a 2014 spring practice where Matt scored the second touchdown of his gridiron career.

More importantly, Matt was given seemingly unrestrained and limitless access to Rutgers players. Name an RU alum in the NFL, and Matt probably knows him. Mohamed Sanu, Tim Wright, Brian Leonard, Brandon Coleman, Leonte Caroo, Devin and Jason McCourty, Matt has met them all.

Aside from meeting the players during their time at Rutgers, Matt follows their careers as they all keep in touch. Every summer, Matt and his father, Tom, go on a road trip, visiting the NFL training camps of each player. They’ve been to Cinncinnatti, Atlanta, New Orleans, Tampa Bay, anywhere a Scarlet Knight has played professionally, the DeRiggi men have been there.

For Barbara DeRiggi, seeing the athletes make sure her son stays a part of the team after they’ve reached the pinnacle of their careers and made their millions means the world.

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“Knowing they love and support him almost as much as we do as a family is a godsend and a blessing,” Barbara DeRiggi said. “It makes him feel included and not excluded, and that’s the best gift you can give anyone, especially for a mom whose heart breaks for her son. That’s a gift you can’t ever thank enough for.”

Matt remains particularly close to Sanu, waiting a day before calling the Falcon wide receiver after Atlanta’s devastating loss to the New England Patriots two years ago in the Super Bowl. Sanu regularly checks in on Matt throughout the year.

Matt has even received birthday wishes from Todd Frazier, the New York Mets third baseman and a Toms River native. Tom DeRiggi played against Frazier in the Toms River Little League circuit growing up, and it continues to amaze him how busy professional athletes take the time out of their days to chat with his younger brother.

“Stereotypically, professional athletes have a bad rap, they don’t have time for this stuff,” Tom said. “It’s a five minute phone call. They have all these things going on, and it’s all it takes to make a kid happy and feel important. I think it’s awesome.”

A new team

When Matt isn’t rubbing elbows with New Jersey’s best athletes, he can be found at Ocean County College fulfilling another one of his passions: radio.

Through the Toms River North work program, Matt has been set up with his own show: "The DJ Matty D Show." Matt is on air with his co-host, producer and aid, Mark Wilsea, five days a week for an hour and a half. They play some tunes and talk sports, naturally.

The show was custom made for him; there’s not program like it at OCC. Matt is the guinea pig, and so far, with a year and a half at the mic under his belt, it’s been going great.

In the end, the radio program is simply another team that Matt has been included in.

“I have to say, through Matthew’s whole life, Toms River schools on every level have taken him under their wing,” Barbara DeRiggi said. “They’ve given him such opportunities to do whatever he can. They always include him.”

Daniel LoGiudice: @danny_logiudice; dlogiudice@gannettnj.com.