The Colombian singer/songwriter shared an intimate family photo on Facebook over the weekend, sharing the newest look at her son, who turns five months old at the end of the month.

“Happy Father’s Day! We love you!” wrote Shakira in a caption to accompany the photo posted Sunday, which was liked by more than 1 million Facebook fans. In the adorable photo, a smiling Shakira holds Milan – quite the fashion-forward baby in his “DJ Sleep-a-lot” onesie – while proud father Gerard Piqué holds one of his son’s hands.

“!!Feliz día del padre!! !Te amamos! Tu familia,” wrote Shakira as a caption to this picture on Facebook.

The photo follows a stunning revelation by Shakira about her relationship with Piqué, who is ten years her junior and a professional soccer player in his native Spain.

“He has his own world and that’s actually one of the healthiest things about the relationship,” revealed Shakira in an interview in the July issue of Elle magazine. “I know that he’s the one person who is with me not because of any interest other than the love than unites us.  There’s nothing I can offer him beyond my womanhood – does that word exist in English?”

The interview comes after the announcement that Shakira will be leaving “The Voice” after season 4 wraps wraps up, a move that will allow the songstress to work on an upcoming album and concentrate on being a mommy in Barcelona, Spain where she and Piqué are remodeling a new home.

It was a hard decision for me to make, because I’m really fond of the coaches, the people in production and everybody around me,” Shakira told E! News when word first broke out about her departure from “The Voice.”

“And I really enjoyed The Voice, but I also have a musical career and I’m also a mother now and my poor baby’s so tired flying such long distances. He already has more miles than any pilot. So I think I have to give him a little break, and we’ll see what happens in the future.”

“What they’ve done is wrong, and they’ve spelled it out very clearly,” said Daniel Calichman, former Chivas USA Academy coach.

Calichman said he should be on the field training up-and-coming soccer stars for the local Chivas USA Major League Soccer team. But instead, he’s huddling with his attorney.

“For the first time in my life, I sat there and was like, my God, this is what discrimination looks like, smells like, feels like,” Calichman said. “And it didn’t feel so good.”

The suit was filed Tuesday by Calichman and Theothoros Chronopoulos in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The suit also claims harassment and retaliation based on ethnicity and race and seeks unspecified damages.

The two men, who are both white, worked for more than a year for the team’s academy, which provides soccer programs for youths.

“Mr. Calichman and Mr. Chronopoulos were terminated on the basis of their ethnicity and national origin,” said their lawyer, Gregory Helmer.

The lawsuit claims Chivas owner Jorge Vergara “intentionally humiliated all employees who were neither Mexican nor Latino,” quoting Vergara as telling a group of employees, “If you don’t speak Spanish, you can go work for the (Los Angeles) Galaxy, unless you speak Chinese, which is not even a language.”

Calichman said the team went a step further when it asked coaches to “collect ethnic and national origin data pertaining to all Chivas Academy players and their parents.”

“Who knows what they were doing with that information, but that’s not typical of Academy behavior,” Calichman said.

The lawsuit claims Chivas USA is trying to mirror the ”Mexican-only” policy of its Guadalajara counterpart.

”While that may be acceptable in Mexico, in California and in our country you can’t make decisions on employment based on ethnicity or race,” Helmer said.

Calichman met with the team president Jose David in January just before his suspension.

“Mr. David said that the company was quote, going back to its Mexican roots and acknowledged very clearly that my clients did not fit into those plans,” Helmer said.

By March, both coaches were fired.

NBC4 attempted to get comment from Chivas USA. A representative did call us back and said the team was not willing to discuss the case because of the pending litigation.

As for a resolution, the coaches have not placed a dollar amount on it, hoping instead to take it to trial and allow a jury to decide.

Helmer said eight non-Latino academy employees have been fired since Vergara took over the team. However, an online directory shows several players and employees who aren’t Mexican or Latino.

Chivas USA is currently last in the Western Conference.

Adan Morales is an 18-year-old senior who stopped two penalty kicks, which ultimately led to the team’s win.

“It’s great feeling, but during the game I got knocked out, so I was bit dizzy,” says the goalkeeper and captain of the team who has plans to study to be a computer engineer after graduating high school.

He says what makes their team special is that not only do they train together, they do everything together.

“We are together inside and outside the field,” says Morales, who is of Mexican background. “We have everybody’s back.”

Center mid-fielder and captain Jorge Segura, 18, scored one of the goals and agrees the win was extraordinary, but more so, that they are like a family.

“We practice two or three hours, seven days a week, but we also go to church together and go out to eat together,” he says.

Principal Donny Jones, as well as the entire town, is elated because the school hasn’t won a state championship in 38 years.

“I’ve been at Collinsville for 22 years and in education for 30 years,” says Jones, who grew up in Collinsville and witnessed the creation of the area’s first soccer team, which only came into existence about a decade ago. “Soccer became popular because of the Hispanic students that started coming to our school.”

He says Hispanic students started attending Collinsville High School, which includes grades K through 12, in 1990. According to Jones, Cagile’s chicken processing plant, which employs more than 1,000 people, as well as a healthcare company in town, brought in a lot of Latino families. Today, the school teaches 870 kids, approximately 42 percent of whom are Hispanic — an increase of nearly 400 students in since 1990.

“Once we had enough interest for a soccer team, we got a coach from our staff,” says Jones, who four years ago hired a new female soccer coach, Julie Littles.

Littles, 34, is the coach who led the boys to their championship, but she credits their first championship win to the boys — many of whom have played under her tutelage since they were freshmen.

“It was their hard work, focus, and determination, but also their sense of family,” she says.

Little, who coaches one of the smallest schools in the state, explains they are a small public school competing against larger private schools.

“It’s a special team, and they have overcome a lot of obstacles to win the state championship,” says Little. “It also opened lots of people’s eyes to small towns and small teams and what they’re capable of.”

She says most of the boys are very poor and don’t even have money to buy fast food at away games, let alone buy socks. Yet, they took it upon themselves to set up fundraisers to be able to afford equipment and uniforms to play their beloved sport.

David Hernandez, 17-year-old defender/midfielder says he’s been on the team since the 8th grade.

“Words can’t explain how great it is,” says the senior, whose family also comes from Mexico. “I love the fact that we were so unique. We had something different that other teams didn’t have. We had love, and we wanted to make a difference — to make our community happy and make history.”

He’s undecided on which college he will attend, but he’s sure he will go to college and interpret for the deaf, and maybe become a missionary.

“I kept the promise to myself that I wouldn’t leave without winning a state championship, so it felt great,” says Luis Segura, 18-year-old sweeper (defense) who got a four-year academic scholarship to study computer engineering or medicine at Jacksonville State University. “I’ve always loved soccer. It’s my passion. It’s a team sport. Ever since I was born, all of my family watches it and plays on local leagues. I’ve always been around it.”

He says most of the team is Mexican, and there are a couple of players from El Salvador and Guatemala, but the whole town now cheers them on.

“There has been a huge response from the town,” says their coach. “I think we’ve had more support the last few years than the 10 years it’s been in existence. “We do have a large Hispanic population, but a lot of the town didn’t know about soccer. They have grown more supportive of the team and the boys.”

Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill announced the charges, saying he will seek to try the teen as an adult.

A homicide by assault charge is less serious than manslaughter. It carries up to five years in prison for adults, but penalties can be less for juveniles.

Gill said it became clear in looking at the facts that the teenager’s actions didn’t warrant murder or manslaughter.

“We did not believe we could demonstrate the premeditation or intent to justify those charges,” Gill told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “Those other charges require another type of mental state. We did not believe that type of mental state was present.”

The 17-year-old has been in juvenile detention since April 27 when the incident occurred at a recreational-league soccer match in a Salt Lake City suburb.

Authorities say the teenager was playing goalie when 46-year-old Ricardo Portillo called a penalty on him for pushing an opposing player. The teenager began arguing with Portillo and then struck him in the head.

Charging documents show witnesses say the teenager threw one punch, hitting him in the rear jaw area with a closed fist. Another witness said Portillo was writing notes on his notepad when he was hit.

Portillo was taken to the hospital in fair condition. Hours later, he went into a coma. He never regained consciousness and died Saturday.

Police say hospital staff told them Portillo had hemorrhaging and a traumatic brain injury.

The fact that the teenager is five months away from turning 18, combined with the seriousness of what happened, led Gill to push to have him tried as an adult. A juvenile court judge will ultimately rule on that request.

The chance of the teen’s rehabilitation is minimal, prosecutors said in court documents.

League officials say they hadn’t had any problems with the teenager prior to this incident.

Funeral services are being held Wednesday in Salt Lake City for Portillo, who leaves behind three daughters and four grandchildren.

A wake is scheduled to run from 1 to 7 p.m., followed by a religious service. Both are open to the public.

After the funeral, Portillo’s remains will be returned to his hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico. He moved to Utah from there 17 years ago.

Family members said Portillo loved soccer, and had been working as a referee in different leagues for eight years. His oldest daughter, Johana Portillo, said he had been attacked before by players, even having his legs and ribs broken. Though his daughters begged him to quit, he said he couldn’t give up his passion.

Portillo was a longtime referee, be he was not licensed by the Utah Soccer Referee Committee.

The incident occurred in a game held by La Liga Continental de Futbol, an unaffiliated soccer league created in 2009. The league holds games for children ages 4 to 17 each Saturday at a junior high school field in Taylorsville.

The league president, Mario Vasquez, said earlier this week that the league will hold an adult, co-ed soccer tournament in Portillo’s honor May 25-26. The funds will go to his family.

—

Almost every bone in McCabe’s face was broken, his skull fractured in several places and his nose nowhere close to where it belonged. As he lay on the ground in Rochester, N.Y., the semi-pro player who assaulted him stood over him yelling, “Take that. Take that. This is what I’m all about.”

“I have said since this happened to me that it’s going to happen again,” McCabe said, “and someone is going to get killed.”

Four years later, someone was.

McCabe was sickened when he heard the news that Ricardo Portillo had died Saturday, a week after the youth soccer referee in Utah had been punched in the head by a 17-year-old player angry over a yellow card. Just as Portillo’s family is now pleading for athletes to control their tempers, McCabe has spent the last four years preaching the importance of sportsmanship in and around Rochester.

To limited success.

“There’s no respect for officials now,” McCabe said Monday. “Go look at any game, and they’re yelling at the official. Pick a high school event, and go watch a couple of games. I guarantee you, you’ll see a coach get out of control on the sideline. Or a parent. Or a kid. It’s so rampant.

“What happened in Utah, I knew it was going to happen. It was just a matter of time,” he added. “Whether it was New York state, Massachusetts, Florida, it was going to happen somewhere in this country.”

But the problem isn’t limited to this country.

Several Dutch teens are awaiting trial in the beating death late last year of a volunteer linesman who was working his son’s youth soccer game. In Brazil last month, a referee was kicked in the chest after the final whistle of a third-division match of the Sao Paulo state championship. A referee in Kenya has filed a lawsuit against the national soccer federation, contending he is impotent after a coach grabbed his testicles in protest over a call. A Spanish soccer player was banned for three months last year after throwing a plastic water bottle at a referee. Also last year, a soccer player in New Zealand was banned indefinitely after he punched a referee and broke his jaw.

And at hockey’s Under-18 World Championships in Estonia last month, a Lithuanian player hurled his stick at a referee, hitting him in the upper body.

“Part of this isn’t a sport problem, part of it is a societal problem,” said Dan Gould, director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State. “You watch TV, and the trash talking that’s accepted. If you’re famous, you’re almost supposed to get into trouble. Why is everyone infatuated with Lindsay Lohan when she seems like a spoiled brat?”

Added Barry Mano, the founder and president of the National Association of Sports Officials, “We’ve become so loud and so brash. It’s about me and about being in the spotlight. All of those things play out in the games we play.”

Part of the beauty of sports — and youth sports in particular — has always been its power to educate and transform. To instill in athletes skills and values they can use for the rest of their lives, in arenas that don’t have hardwood floors or boundaries outlined in chalk. Talk to any CEO or other successful person, and odds are he or she can trace the lessons they learned about teamwork, fair play, leadership and overcoming challenges back to Little League, Pee-Wee football or some other youth sport.

But just like passing, dribbling and hitting, those skills don’t come with the uniform and the practice schedule. They have to be taught and reinforced by league administrators, coaches and, of course, the parents who signed their kids up for a team in the first place.

“Most Americans really want their kids to learn values through sports. And research has found we can teach kids to be good sports and enhance their moral development through sports if it’s done correctly,” Gould said. “But the big myth is it just happens.”

Even referees and officials can do a better job, Mano said.

Watch any college basketball game, and odds are you’ll see a coach not only stalking the sideline but coming onto the floor to protest a call. That’s a violation, Mano said, yet it’s almost never called.

“We’ve softened too much by letting bad behavior go escaped [sic],” he said.

It may not seem like much. But add up all the little transgressions that have been overlooked or excused, and sports now has a big problem.

“I really believe in the power of sport for changing people,” Gould said. “But it’s not going to happen if we just hope it happens. We need to train coaches, and the leagues need to be organized and have pretty defined rules of what’s tolerable and what’s not tolerable.

“You also need to recognize good sporting behavior,” he added. “It’s not just about fixing the problem.”

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has developed a “True Sport” campaign to help parents, coaches and administrators return the emphasis in sports to the life lessons that don’t show up in the win-loss column. The program includes educational materials, codes of conduct and good behavior pledges, and the approach is individually tailored for athletes in elementary school, middle school and high school. In the Netherlands, the Dutch FA responded to Richard Nieuwenhuizen’s death with a “Respect” campaign targeted at players of all levels.

And at i9 Sports, sportsmanship is valued so highly there are weekly rewards for it.

The recreational youth league, which has programs in 280 communities in 28 states, designates a specific value of sportsmanship — being a good buddy, humility, leadership — for coaches to emphasize each week. At the end of the week, the player on each team who best exemplified that value gets recognized.

Parents also have to pledge to display good sportsmanship, and not use negative or derogatory language with officials, coaches, other parents or kids. They also pledge to keep fun as the main emphasis of the league.

“We believe there’s great value in competition, healthy competition,” said Frank Fiume, founder and CEO of i9 Sports. “But learning how to win with grace and lose with dignity is key.”

That’s a lesson that’s been ignored for too long, McCabe said, with devastating consequences.

Four years after he was assaulted, McCabe still gets migraine-like headaches every day, has limited hearing in his left ear and has lost his sense of taste and smell. Yet he continues to referee — “I just love doing it so much” — hoping he can instill lessons of sportsmanship with the coaches and players he encounters.

But he wonders if it has any impact. Though his assault was big news in Rochester when it happened and again when his attacker was sentenced to 10 years in prison, McCabe sees the same poisonous behavior everywhere he goes. At a state championship football game he worked recently, one of the coaches complained constantly and threw his clipboard. At a boys lacrosse game, McCabe heard a coach tell one of his players to “bury” an opponent.

“Every time I try to talk to somebody I hit a brick wall,” McCabe said.

“Unless something’s done in this country, it’s going to happen again,” he said. “Until we teach kids how to play and respect officials, it’s going to happen again.”

—

AP Sports Writers Tales Azzoni and Ricardo Zuniga and Associated Press Writer Mike Corder contributed to this report.

Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill says he and his team are reviewing the evidence and state statutes to determine appropriate charges. Gill says there are strict rules to follow because the suspect is a juvenile.

Police say the 17-year-old, whose name hasn’t been released, struck the 46-year-old Ricardo Portillo in the side of the head during a recreational soccer league match after the referee called a penalty.

Portillo died Saturday after a week in a coma.

The teen is in juvenile detention on suspicion of aggravated assault. He may face more severe charges.

They spoke at a candlelight vigil held on the front lawn of the Salt Lake City home of Ricardo Portillo, 46. Wearing white shirts and holding signs that read, “In loving memory of Ricky,” family and friends stood around a table that had a picture of Portillo raising his arms in victory, with flowers and candles surrounding it.

Police have accused a 17-year-old player in a recreational soccer league of punching Portillo after he called a foul on him and issued him a yellow card.

Portillo died Saturday night after a week in a coma.

“He was a father, he was a friend, he was a grandfather, he left a whole family behind,” said Johana Portillo, the oldest of his three daughters. “They should think before they do something stupid.”

The suspect has been booked into juvenile detention on suspicion of aggravated assault. Authorities will consider additional charges since Portillo has passed away. An autopsy is planned. No cause of death was released.

Asked if she can forgive the teenager, Johana Portillo said she hopes to someday, but isn’t ready yet.

She said Sunday she doesn’t care what the punishment becomes since it won’t bring back her father. She only hopes he can’t get out and do the same thing to somebody else, she said.

“I feel sorry for him. I feel for his family,” she said. “But if he was old enough to do what he did, then he’s responsible to pay for it.”

The unaffiliated soccer league, Liga Continental de Futbol, updated its Facebook posting Sunday with a tribute to Portillo including a number of photographs of him refereeing and playing soccer. It also set up a bank account to accept donations for his family.

Mario Vazquez, the league president who also was a friend and worked with Portillo, said Sunday everyone in the league had the greatest respect for him. He had a great sense of humor and loved refereeing, he said. The league plans to honor him with a tribute at next Saturday’s games.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the Portillo family during this difficult time. Ricardo will always be with us,” he said.

Johana Portillo said she hopes her father’s death leads to more security at sporting events and better self-control from players. She said her father had been attacked by players twice before in his eight years refereeing soccer matches – even having his ribs and legs broken.

Pedro Lopez, his brother-in-law and a fellow soccer referee, called on soccer players worldwide to respect referees and remember it’s a sport meant to relieve stress – not cause pain.

“Remember that we are human beings, and we make mistakes,” Lopez said in Spanish. “Don’t take justice into your own hands.”

The former professional soccer player said he plans to continue working as a referee. He said leaving it behind would be abandoning his passion. He said he’ll do so remembering Ricardo Portillo.

Ricardo Portillo’s daughters had begged him to stop refereeing in a soccer league because of the growing risk of violence from angry players. But, like Lopez, Portillo told his daughters he couldn’t quit.

“It was his passion,” she said. “We could not tell him no.”

Now his three daughters are faced with planning his funeral after he succumbed to injuries late Saturday that had put him in a coma for a week since teenager goalie punched him in the head.

James Yapias, a longtime friend of Ricardo Portillo and youth soccer coach, said coaches and parents need to do a better job teaching children about sportsmanship and being non-violent. He also called for more police presence at games. Portillo’s death is a reminder that life can change in a second.

“We all love this sport,” Yapias said. “But we all need to respect the rules.”

Accounts from a police report, Portillo’s daughter and others offer further detail what occurred.

The teenager was playing goalie during a game at Eisenhower Junior High School in Taylorsville when Portillo issued him a yellow card for pushing an opposing forward trying to score. In soccer, a yellow card is given as a warning to a player for an egregious violation of the rules. Two yellow cards lead to a red card and expulsion from the game.

The teenager, quite a bit heavier than Portillo, began arguing with the referee, then punched him in the face. Portillo seemed fine at first, then asked to be held because he felt dizzy. He sat down and started vomiting blood, triggering his friend to call an ambulance.

When police arrived around noon, the teenager was gone and Portillo was laying on the ground in the fetal position. Through translators, Portillo told emergency workers that his face and back hurt and he felt nauseous. He had no visible injuries and remained conscious. He was considered to be in fair condition when they took him to the Intermountain Medical Center.

But when Portillo arrived to the hospital, he slipped into a coma with swelling in his brain. Johana Portillo called detectives to let them know his condition had worsened.

That’s when detectives intensified their search for the goalie. By Saturday evening, the teenager’s father agreed to bring him down to speak with police.

Johana Portillo said she last spoke to him that night before he fell into a coma. She grabbed his hand and told him he was going to be all right. He held her hand tightly and said, “no.” Within seconds, doctors ushered her out of the room and he lost consciousness.

She said Sunday night, with tears streaming down her face, that her father will always be in her heart.

“It’s going to be very difficult,” she said. “But I know he’s going to help us from heaven.”

Mario Vasquez said Friday he’s still in shock about what happened last Saturday to his friend Ricardo Portillo.

He says La Liga Continental de Futbol will continue holding weekend games for children and teens at a middle-school field in suburban Salt Lake City. But he says off-duty police officers will watch over things.

Vasquez says the league was created in 2009 to provide a family-friendly place where the Hispanic community could play soccer.

Portillo’s family says the 46-year-old was attacked before while refereeing. Vasquez says those incidents didn’t happen in his league, and that it’s never seen anything this violent before.

Ricardo Portillo, 46, has swelling in his brain and his recovery is uncertain as he remains in critical condition, Dr. Shawn Smith said Thursday at the Intermountain Medical Center in the Salt Lake City suburb of Murray.

Police say a 17-year-old player in a recreational soccer league punched Portillo after the man called a foul on him and issued him a yellow card. The teen has been booked into juvenile detention on suspicion of aggravated assault. Those charges could be amplified if Portillo dies.

The attack Saturday wasn’t the first time Portillo has been assaulted by an angry player while refereeing, said his oldest daughter, Johana Portillo. He’s had his ribs and leg broken before.

Smith declined to speak about what caused Ricardo Portillo’s injuries or divulge his prognosis due to the ongoing police investigation. But Johana Portillo, 26, said her father might not survive.

“I know he didn’t, he doesn’t want to leave us,” she said, crying. “We hope for a miracle that he will be ok.”

Johana Portillo wasn’t at the Saturday afternoon game in the Salt Lake City suburb of Taylorsville, but she said she’s been told by witnesses and detectives that the player hit her father in the side of the head after he issued the yellow card.

“When he was writing down his notes, he just came out of nowhere and punched him,” she said.

His friends who were there told her Ricardo Portillo seemed fine at first, but then asked to be held because he felt dizzy. They sat him down and he started vomiting blood, triggering his friend to call an ambulance. The referee has been in a coma since Saturday.

Johana Portillo said her father’s passion is soccer, and he’s been a referee in the recreational league for eight years. Five years ago, a player upset with a call broke his ribs. A few years before that, a player broke his leg, she said. Other referees have been hurt, too.

“People don’t know it’s a game,” Johana Portillo said. “We’re all there to have fun, not to go and kill each other.”

His daughters begged him to stop refereeing – his second job – but he continued because he loved soccer.

“It was his passion,” she said. “We could not tell him no.”

The league is not affiliated with the Utah Youth Soccer Association or any city or town recreation department. It is called the Liga Continental, said the referee’s brother-in-law Pedro Lopez, who also gets paid to referee in the league.

Johana Portillo said the family doesn’t know the teenager who threw the punch, and they haven’t heard from him or anyone in his family.

Friday is Ricardo Portillo’s youngest daughter’s 16th birthday, and the family was planning to leave on vacation Thursday, Johana Portillo said. Instead, they have set up a bank fund in case their father dies.

“If my dad doesn’t make it, we want to make his last wish come true,” Johana Portillo said. “To see his family again.”

She said his sisters are trying to come from Guadalajara, Mexico. The referee hadn’t seen his sisters in the 16 years since he moved to Utah.

“It’s just not fair,” said Johana Portillo, holding back tears. “This person caused us a lot of pain. I want justice for my dad, and we’re going to get it. … If he spends time in jail forever, it’s not enough. They are not going to bring my daddy back.”

—

“At first, I thought my leg was asleep,” Mariah said from her hospital bed at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center.

The next day, the pain and tingling was gone and the numbness had spread up her legs to her waist. Doctors said Mariah suffered a stroke in her spine. Spinal strokes account for just more than one percent of all strokes in adults, and even fewer in children.

“When Mariah first presented, that wasn’t even our initial thought,” said Dr. Thao Duong of Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. “It was not in the first five diagnoses we were considering.

Doctors at Valley Medical and Lucile Packard Childrens hospitals concurred in their final diagnosis. Doctors told Mariah’s family, that their daughter — who danced folklorico and played soccer for nine years — would never walk again.

“I couldn’t believe it, I was like no, this is not true,” said Sylvia Serratos, Mariah’s mother. “How can a healthy child not be able to walk again or move, dance, or play soccer.”

The Saturday after her stroke, Mariah missed her first soccer game in years. When her teammates, their families and the Central Valley Youth Soccer League found out why, they immediately started raising money to ease Mariah’s transition.

“It hit everybody because everybody has a son or daughter the same age and everyone thought how it would change their lives to go through what they’re going through right now,” said Dave Bibo, the father of one of Mariah’s teammates.

To date, the league’s raised more than $20,000 through t-shirt sponsorships and sales bearing the slogan “Stand for Mariah.”

They rallied Fish Construction to donate the labor to make the bathroom wheelchair-accessible and to build a wheelchair ramp at the family home, and in turn, the construction company got a local lumber company to donate some of the materials. Now, some of the league parents are shopping local auto dealerships to find a vehicle suitable for the family’s new needs.

“This is a long-term commitment for us, to make life easier for her and a little more fun,” Bibo said, adding that the league upped the fundraising goal from $25,000 to $40,000.

The league reached out to the San Jose Earthquakes to host a fundraising night in Mariah’s honor. Mariah herself, lit up as she talked about her love of the San Francisco 49ers and her favorite player, Colin Kaepernick.

“Maybe he could visit,” she said.

Mariah’s mother cried as she told NBC Bay Area that theirs is a proud family that never wanted to ask for help. That the league and Mariah’s team stepped out without even asking, she said, made it even more meaningful.

“I don’t know how to even thank them because they’ve been supportive, being here, the girls are here every other day, her coaches call, they just have not left us and I think that’s helped Mariah a lot,” Sylvia Serratos said.

Mariah is looking forward to going home on Thursday, to sleeping in her own bed, to being with her parents and younger brother and sister again. And, to having chorizo and eggs that she’ll ask both her grandmothers to cook for her. Her father’s mother is flying in from Dallas, on a ticket donated by Lucille Packard Childrens Hospital.

Then, Mariah says, it’ll be back to the gym and exercise. Though her doctors say she won’t walk again, Mariah has a different opinion.

She says, “I’ll walk again.”