The story of Sayreville soccer and two foundations connected by a rainbow

EDITOR’S NOTE: The story below was published in August 2017.

Please CLICK HERE to read a story from earlier this month celebrating the pending retirement of Sayreville boys soccer coach Nick Cifelli and please CLICK HERE to watch a video of a recent on-field retirement celebration in his honor.

Shortly after their baby was diagnosed in utero with a complex cardiac defect, Marisa Tufaro’s devastated but hopeful parents left the obstetrician’s office to find a gorgeous rainbow waiting for them outside.

The rainbow has forever since been a symbol of hope, holding special meaning to Greg and Cyndi.

How uncannily fitting it is, then, that a rainbow would actually adorn the sky during each of the last two fundraisers for The Marisa Tufaro Foundation.

Sixteen days after a rainbow appeared above Chick-fil-A in Woodbridge during a Snapple Bowl “Spirit Night” for Marisa’s foundation, another rainbow made its presence felt in the backdrop of the Sayreville War Memorial High School boys soccer program’s seventh annual Alumni Game on Thursday night.

Making the rainbow more special was that it appeared diagonally across from a memorial scoreboard bearing the name of Matthew M. Welna, a former Sayreville and Rider University soccer star who was the quintessential student-athlete.

In addition to raising money for scholarships to be awarded to a Sayreville graduating senior student-athlete and a current Rider soccer player – an annual mission of the Alumni Game – the Sayreville program and The Matthew M. Welna Foundation combined to honor Marisa with a generous donation to her foundation.

“When Marisa passed, I really wanted to do something,” said Sayreville head coach Nick Cifelli, who first met Greg when he began covering boys soccer for the Home News Tribune well over a decade ago. “I thought this would be a great situation.”

Matthew died tragically at the age of 25 on March 20, 2015, leaving behind a loving and grieving family including his parents, Roma and Jerry, and sisters, Michelle and Olivia, as well as multiple communities of affected friends, colleagues and former teammates.

The Matthew M. Welna foundation was established to preserve Matthew’s memory and seeks to uphold and carry on his legacy.“For those who knew him,” reads a statement on the Welna Foundation website, “Matthew will be remembered as a compassionate, generous and loving man who taught everyone he met how to live life with an open heart and an open mind.”

“He’s the kind of kid that you want your son to be like and the kind of kid that you want your daughter to bring home,” Rider men’s soccer coach Charlie Inverso told Greg shortly after Matthew’s untimely passing. “His parents did an amazing job raising him … on discipline, integrity and hard work. You don’t see kids and families like that too much anymore. He was an old-school kid like that.”

Cifelli told Greg in March 2015 that Matthew was “the top all-around kid I ever coached.”

“I’ve coached a lot of people – kids who were great soccer players, kids who were great students and kids who were great people,” Cifelli said. “Matt was all three, and the greatest individual you will ever meet.”

Cifelli said Welna trained so hard that Matthew literally changed his T-shirt three times during some practices because each T-shirt would become so saturated with sweat.

“He was very well-skilled and I think what made him a bit better than others was his competitiveness and work ethic,” Cifelli said. “He was a machine on the field. He practiced the way he played. He was always in game mode.”

Cifelli started the Alumni Game, traditionally held in the late summer before the start of training camp, as a way to help his incoming players prepare for the upcoming season as current charges square off against former stars.

Following the passing of his brother, John, who died in 2011 at the age of 45, Cifelli turned the game into a fundraiser. The event, of course, took on added meaning with Matthew’s untimely passing. Matthew was among the Alumni Game’s biggest donors while he was alive.

Players wore jerseys bearing the names of the game’s honorees – Team Matt and Team John – in the school’s colors of blue and white during Thursday’s contest.

During Welna’s four seasons at Sayreville, the Bombers posted a 50-25 record. Welna played in 79 games, making 73 starts. He tallied 22 assists and eight goals. He was named All-Greater Middlesex Conference in 2007 as a senior.

Welna played 44 games as a midfielder over four seasons for Rider and was named to the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference All-Academic team three times. He graduated from the university in 2012 with a degree in Business.

“The Matthew Welna Foundation hopes to expand to raise more money so that we can reach out to other organizations and help out as much as possible,” Olivia Welna said in a poignant video on the foundation’s website. “We obviously want to continue honoring Matthew in that way. And by honoring him, we have to support everyone as much as possible, because that’s what he would have wanted.”

Similarly, The Marisa Tufaro Foundation exists to help children in need through the greater Middlesex County area.

Marisa was born with a complex cardiac defect that required six open-heart surgeries. Despite keeping hundreds of doctor’s appointments and being hospitalized for more than two years, Marisa lived a vibrant life that inspired. A heart transplant, which was supposed to extend Marisa’s life, tragically cut it short after a post-operative complication developed into a rare form of Stage IV cancer. After radiation and chemotherapy treatments failed to thwart the relentless onslaught of an aggressive disease that riddled her brain and body, Marisa succumbed to her illness in January following a valiant battle. She was just 13 years old.

Team John, consisting of current Sayreville players, defeated Team Matt, comprised of Sayreville alumni, 6-5. The final result that appeared on the Matthew M. Welna Memorial scoreboard, however, was not important. The winners were two foundations, the legacies of three beloved individuals (Matthew, John and Marisa) and those who will benefit from the benevolence of others.

We can’t help but think that Matthew and Marisa were on opposite ends of that rainbow, holding it up in the late summer sky.