The guest list of the The HEARTest Yard Ungala enjoyed a red carpet welcome, silent auction, cocktail reception, wine, appetizers and full three-course meal prepared by Steak 48.

The Feb. 28 event at Steak 48 raised $223,461 for The HEARTest Yard program.

The guest list included Carolina Panthers greats Christian McCaffrey, Thomas Davis, Luke Kuechly, Jonathan Stewart

J.J. Jansen as well as NASCAR Hall-of-Famer Jeff Gordon, Atrium CEO Gene Woods, Bojangles CEO Jose Armario and Diamonds Direct co-owner Dovy Klarberg.

The HEARTest Yard, a program under Receptions for Research: The Greg Olsen Foundation, supports families of children with congenital heart disease with in-home nursing care and comprehensive medical services at The HEARTest Yard Congenital Heart Center at The Levine Children’s Hospital in Charlotte, which served over 25,000 patients in the first year. They have raised over $4.3 million for the cause.

Former Carolina Panther Greg Olsen was at Steak 48 Monday evening for The HEARTEST Yard benefit. More than 250 people showed up for the event.

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Dr. Gonzalo Wallis is a pediatric cardiologist at Atrium Health Levine Children’s HEARTest Yard Congenital Heart Center.
2021 was a record-breaking year for Dr. Wallis and his team: They completed more heart transplants than any other year, giving 19 kids a new chance at life.

“In 2014, we were doing one to two transplants a year; it was more of a rescue operation. The program has grown tremendously since then with the support of Levine Children’s.”
Why did you choose this specialty?
The background: I’m actually from Venezuela, so growing up there were no transplants or options to help kids in severe heart failure. My wife is American, so we decided to move to the US to train and I was lucky enough to work with a guy who was like a pioneer of transplants.

Transplants let you turn the tables and give somebody a new shot at life.

How are pediatric transplants different from adult transplants?
In adults, transplants are usually related to heart attacks.

But children that need transplants typically have congenital heart disease – meaning they’re born with heart defects – or their heart has been injured with infections or chemotherapy.

In other words, pediatric transplants can be more complex, physically and emotionally, and need a teamwork approach to care for them.

You need a village and a really robust system with a lot of resources to do it right.
What’s behind the growth of the transplant program at Levine Children’s?
It’s been deliberate. We’ve invested in the program, acquiring talent, resources and building relationships with other hospitals in the region so patients can stay here instead of having to go to other cities like Atlanta, Boston or even further.

It’s great for the families to stay local instead of relocating for years at a time.
How do you bring the best care to Charlotte patients?
Over the past 8 years we have partnered and collaborated with the biggest transplant centers in the world through the Pediatric Heart Transplant Society. Through collaboration we make sure we standardize the care and provide the most up to date care.

The results: We all share this wealth of knowledge and then we make sure the patients benefit from that.
We also work with an amazing organ procurement organization, LifeShare, that discusses donation with families and procures our organs .

What is life like for a child post-transplant?
They live an ordinary life. They play sports; they go to school; they do normal stuff.

Contrary to popular belief, they don’t live in a bubble.
The other cool part of being a transplant doctor is that you don’t just deal with cardiology. You build lifelong relationships with your patients, and they come to you for everything, even an ingrown toenail.

What do you do in your free time?
I’m a bit of a workaholic, but my family loves exploring Charlotte. My son plays sports, so I spend a lot of weekends at soccer and basketball games.

We love eating out. Peppervine, the Crunkleton and Dot Dot Dot are some of our favorites.

What’s the one thing you want our readers to know?
There’s a big need for organ donation. Sadly, we don’t have enough organs to be able to transplant everyone.

Especially in pediatrics, it’s important that parents know the facts about organ donation.
Key number: One organ donor can save up to eight lives. Adults can register online.

Greg Olsen and his wife Kara are continuing to make an impact in our community. Their son, TJ, had a heart transplant last year. They’re now using his struggles as a blessing for other families going through the same thing.

In a few weeks, Steak 48 at Apex South Park will be unusually abuzz for a Monday night. The restaurant plans to host a benefit on February 28 to raise money for The HEARTest Yard, a foundation for the families of children born with congenital heart disease. Longtime Panthers tight end Greg Olsen founded it with Levine Children’s Hospital in 2013, a year after his son TJ was born with a rare congenital heart condition.

About 250 guests are expected, including Panthers general manager Scott Fitterer, former Panther stars Luke Kuechly and Thomas Davis, and NASCAR luminaries Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. We caught up with Olsen this morning to check in on TJ, who received a heart transplant in June; retired life; and The HEARTest Yard. (Responses are edited for length and clarity.)

First of all, how’s TJ?

TJ’s doing great. They told us that the first year would be a little bit of a journey, with some ups and downs, as he settles into this new life and figures out what to expect. But since the turn of the new year, we’ve seen him really start to find his rhythm and rediscover his energy and spirit and confidence, and realize he doesn’t need to live with reservations. We’re continuing to kind of turn up the pressure on him; we want him to push his limits a little bit and get out of his comfort zone. He doesn’t need to feel different. He doesn’t need to feel like there are things he can’t do. We tell him, “Go. Break free and just chase things that you never could do. Go be active. Go fall off your bike. Go jump off the porch. Just go.” And that’s a little bit of a grind, a little bit of a balance. But we can definitely see that he’s coming out of his shell a little bit, and it’s been fun to watch.

How’s retirement treating you?

Good! My wife would argue that I’m the busiest retired guy ever. Since I’ve retired, I’ve had a handful of other projects and things that I’m interested in that have kind of caught my attention and my interest, but it’s been great. I get a lot of time at home with the kids. I get a lot of time to do carpool and pick-up, coach their teams and take them to practice, and be involved with school and community activities with the kids that maybe otherwise, at certain times of the year, I couldn’t be around for. This new broadcast role (as an NFL game analyst for Fox Sports) has been a good job for the calendar. It gives me a lot of free time, but it also keeps me busy enough and energized and pushing towards something. So it’s been a good balance, and it leaves a lot of time that I can fill with things I want to do, not things I have to do.

The playoffs this year have been chock-full of incredible games. Have they made you want to get back on the field?

They’ve been so fun! But no. You know, the playoffs are always the hardest time for former and current players that aren’t in them, because it’s like you’re watching all these other guys celebrate and achieve what they set out for, and you’re like, “Man, I want to do that again!” But it’s been fun to be a fan and to just sit at home and not care who wins. To just cheer for good games and excitement and not really have a vested interest in the outcome as much as appreciating what these guys are able to do. Watching that with the kids and the family, and having casual Sundays at home, has been fun.

How are things with the foundation? Anything new?

We’re always trying to find ways for The HEARTest Yard to expand—not only our offerings here locally with Levine Children’s Hospital and through our existing programs with them, but also to expand our footprint. We’re looking at expanding into new areas of the congenital heart world, whether that be organ procurement and heart transplantation now that we’ve gone through it and have a little more obvious familiarity than we did years back. But also expanding our reach into other markets, expanding into other areas and regions of the Carolinas. Those are always conversations that we’re having. We feel like we’re never done growing. We feel like there’s always something more that we can do. There’s always something more that we can tackle, and that’s the fun part. The chase is always the fun part.

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Photo by Peter Taylor

How did the partnership with Steak 48 come about?

Actually, the team at Steak 48 reached out to us last summer. They approached us with the opportunity to do what we’re calling an “un-gala.” It’s a private dinner of about 240 to 250 people. They were kind enough to offer up the entire restaurant, the food, the service, the experience, the staff—everything that you would come to expect here on a Saturday night when you’re having dinner at Steak 48, except you know that your bill and your ticket fee all go towards The HEARTest Yard and the team at Levine Children’s Hospital. So we’re really grateful for this new partnership, and they’ve just been awesome to us. And the response when we opened up the tickets blew us away. We have a waiting list. We feel bad, actually, because we have close friends and people being like, “Hey, we want to come,” and we’re like, “We literally don’t have any seats. We’ll let you know if something opens up.” But it’s a good problem to have. We’re just really thankful for the team here at Steak 48. Hopefully this is an event that we can add to the calendar annually.

> Read our 2016 “Life Lessons” with Olsen here.

TJ Olsen, the son of Panthers legend Greg Olsen, hit the Keep Pounding drum in the 2021 home finale, presented by Atrium Health.

TJ was born with a congenital heart condition and had a successful heart transplant at Atrium Health Levine Children’s Hospital this past summer. 

Dr. Gonzalo Wallis, medical director of pediatric heart transplant, joined TJ in hitting the drum on Sunday. Wallis is TJ’s doctor and led the cardiac team at Atrium Health Levine Children’s to complete 18 pediatric heart transplants in 2021, the most ever in Charlotte and the most in the southeast this year.

He still works weekends at stadiums across the country, but there’s a lot more family time in Greg Olsen’s life these days.

The longtime NFL tight end, now the color commentator for Fox’s No. 2 broadcast team alongside Kevin Burkhardt, is able to be around more than if he were still playing, even though he remains busy and travels. And as his son TJ navigates the early stages of receiving a heart transplant – the operation took place in June – it couldn’t be a better arrangement for the Olsens.

“In that regard, it’s really nice for the home life,” Olsen told USA TODAY Sports.

TJ, born with a rare congenital heart condition called hypoplastic left heart syndrome, is back in school, playing sports and living a “fairly normal life all things considered,” Olsen said.

TJ Olsen, now 9, endured three open heart surgeries in three years before the transplant. Greg Olsen’s foundation created an initiative called “The HEARTest Yard,” which is dedicated to TJ and provides relief to families of pediatric cardiovascular patients.

“He’s really doing well,” Olsen added. “We kind of go checkup at a time. So far, the checkups have gone really well, and the doctors are happy with how his body’s kind of healing and adapting to a new heart. It’s a wild thing, but he’s doing really well.”

Former player Greg Olsen of the Carolina Panthers reacts during the football game against the Philadelphia Eagles at Bank of America Stadium on October 10, 2021 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Olsen typically flies home Sunday night after he calls his game and then reserves Monday for family and decompressing. His prep for the next week’s game begins Tuesday, but the nature of the job allows him to work wherever; he can watch film while traveling or or take a call from a waiting room.

If he has no “Thursday Night Football” studio responsibilities, that means he can spend Monday through Friday at home, doing things he couldn’t do while playing, like picking up and dropping off TJ and his other two children from school, coaching flag football or being a soccer parent.

Missing those events while away on the weekend still stings, Olsen said, but the tradeoff has been worth it.

“I think that’s come at a good time,” Chris Olsen, Greg’s father, said of his son’s retirement. “TJ is doing better right now. Starting to put on some weight, starting to get some strength back.

“The doctors told us it was going to be a process. They said it was going to be a year or so before we started getting him back to where we need him to be.”

Follow Chris Bumbaca on Twitter @BOOMbaca.

CHARLOTTE – The Beanie is Back!

Fans can now secure their 2021 Greg Olsen Beanie and tickets to the Panthers game against the Falcons on Dec. 12. Click here for purchase information.

Tickets are $75 each and include an exclusive Greg Olsen Beanie with a portion of proceeds donated to the Atrium Health Levine’s Children’s Hospital.

Olsen’s annual beanie program raises money every year for his Receptions 4 Research and Heartest Yard Fund through Atrium Health and the Greg Olsen Foundation.

The beanies will also be available for purchase on game day in the Panthers Team Store and online on Sunday, Dec. 12.