Real Salt Lake exec John Genna’s battle with ALS inspired team to be #GennaStrong

Update: Just over a year after being officially diagnosed with ALS, Real Salt Lake vice president of communications John Genna died on Aug. 5, his family announced. The story below was published on July 27, 2023.

John Genna ignored the aches and pains in his body and focused on the problem at hand.

It was late 2020 and Genna was in his office along with other Real Salt Lake officials trying to sort through the turmoil and uncertainty the club was facing at the time. The team had been put up for sale in the wake of serious allegations against its then-owner Dell Loy Hansen and Chief Business Officer Andy Carroll.

Genna, the team’s vice president of communications, and his fellow executives wanted to ensure the team’s players and employees were cared for.

Keep them united. Keep them going.

Genna set aside the strange feeling, a weakness that seemed to worsen with no explanation, and tried to offer his strength to the club.

“To get through some of those times, you had to have a group of people without personal agenda, without ulterior motives, who were who were there to help shepherd the club and the people at the club,” RSL general manager Elliot Fall said. “John was an absolute leader in that. There’s no question. He’s a culture setter.”

Even now, from his deathbed as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis eats away at his body, Genna wants to help his team the best way he knows how.

A difficult journey

Genna, 56, first started feeling symptoms in late 2017. They presented as pain in his thighs and calves, but he chalked those up to the aches he commonly felt from all the pickup hockey he still played.

But the pain didn’t go away. Other parts of his body started getting affected. When he visited doctors, they assured him it wasn’t a genetic disease like ALS or multiple sclerosis.

Genna had back and neck surgery to fuse some of his spine together, but that didn’t seem to help. He started to lose function in his legs, forcing him to rely on a cane, forearm crutches and eventually a wheelchair.

It wasn’t until last year that the ALS diagnosis came.

“You just gave me a death sentence,” Genna recalled saying when he found out.

For the last several weeks, Genna has been in an ICU bed fielding visitors from family, friends, former colleagues and members of the RSL organization. Before then, he was still emailing media advisories, working the press box at games and leading the weekly all-staff video meetings.

“I think him working until the very end was crazy because people actively got to see how he was changing,” Genna’s daughter, Lauren Genna, said. “People got to actually see how his body is changing.”

Genna is paralyzed from the chest down and has minimal function in only one arm. He cannot feed himself, or breathe on his own.

“Medically speaking, quite frankly,” Lauren Genna said, “he only has a few weeks left.”

But Genna still isn’t focused on the end.

Unrelenting positivity

Genna is not one to wallow in misfortune. When RSL was going through its most trying time, he made it a point to be someone people could lean on for comfort.

“What I always wanted to be able to provide was a calming, guiding, soothing voice,” Genna said earlier this month. “Change is different. Change is new. Change can be scary. So if there can be someone that is a calming voice, someone they know they could turn to for answers, or a hug, or whatever, I wanted to be that for everybody.”

Genna has displayed the same demeanor throughout his medical ordeal. The way he has chosen to approach his struggles has inspired many around him, from his closest family members to players who have since left the RSL organization.

Justin Meram, who played for the team from 2020-22 before being traded to Charlotte FC in April, developed a close relationship with Genna. The two bantered constantly, but the executive was also a trusted resource for Meram on days he had a poor training session or wasn’t getting enough playing time.

“He’s fighting this massive battle, but he’s out here helping us with our daily struggles,” Meram said.

The team found out about Genna’s diagnosis during a team meeting at the stadium, Meram recalled. He added that many in the room started crying.

“He could’ve had a million excuses, but he never gave one,” Meram said. “That’s what we loved about him.”

Due to Genna’s condition, those close to him have essentially grieved in real time. The club started a #GennaStrong campaign to raise awareness for ALS and also get donations for his family. He’s had conversations with loved ones where they share memories, laughs and tears.

Some of those conversations have been difficult. Lauren Genna said she had to help her dad understand that he won’t be alive for her wedding or other milestones she or her sisters will achieve.

“I’m not afraid of dying,” Genna said. “I’m sad about what I’m missing.”

‘Father figure’ and ‘brother’

Former RSL executive assistant Andi Burdette was on a road trip to New York with her bosses, and found herself alone on her 27th birthday.

At 10:30 that night, she got a text from Genna saying they should get a slice of pizza for her birthday.

“He was tired, he’d been busy, he’d been doing all this stuff, but he remembered, ‘It’s her birthday and I want her to feel special,’” Burdette said.

That is just one example of the care Genna shows for those around him. For Burdette, her relationship with Genna evolved from colleague to “work dad” to a true “father figure.” When she talks to him nowadays, she still refers to him as “dad.”

“John is the first man to tell me he loves me unconditionally,” Burdette said.

Soccer analyst Brian Dunseth has known Genna since the latter’s days as a sponsorship representative with LifeVantage, where he worked from 2012-2017 before joining RSL on its sponsorship team. He described Genna as “people-first,” and said he has never heard anyone speak one negative word about him, which is telling.

Dunseth recalled with glee a road trip to Vancouver where he and Genna sat next to each other on the plane and Genna offered to drive him to his hotel. It was during the days when there were no GPS maps on cell phones yet.

So even though Dunseth knew the name of his hotel, he didn’t know exactly where it was. The pair drove around for 20 minutes looking for it and laughing, he said.

“He’s my brother, and I’m not the only one that says that,” Dunseth said.

Fond memories

Lauren Genna was recently reading “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” by Toshikazu Kawaguchi to her dad in the hospital when a thought dawned on her.

Initially, she thought she had never read to her father before, but then recalled that, at around age 4 or 5, she read the children’s series “Dick and Jane” to him. She said that was among many of the memories she’ll look back on with joy after Genna dies.

Lauren Genna also said she misses her dad’s cooking, which was one of the first things to go when his ALS starting getting bad. She recalled her dad always making a “production” out of cooking at home, whether it was a wholesale ban on jarred pasta sauce or digging the grill out of 5 feet of Park City snow to fire up some steaks — all while they listened to music like Louis Prima and he danced.

Meram said he’ll always remember Genna’s smile.

“He was incredible for, not only myself, but for the team because of just the energy that he brought,” Meram said.

Melanie Peterson, a former RSL employee, said Genna has a way of respectfully making fun of everyone around him. For her, it was receiving a playful a comment from him about a grammar mistake or forgetting an attachment in an email.

“I feel incredibly lucky to have known him this time and to get every moment that I get with him,” Peterson said. “Every smile, every wiseass comment that he makes. Things that probably used to get on my nerves ... now it’s just endearing.”

Fall said he will remember Genna “forever.”

“The way that he has confronted things, and the way that he has dealt with the things he’s had to go through,” Fall said, “has taught me a lot.”

Genna is still trying make memories as best he can. He wants his legacy to be that, even in the face of death, he had a smile on his face and never took the life he had for granted.

“That’s how I’m choosing to go out,” Genna said. “Every day, there’s an opportunity for a nugget of goodness. If I’m going to be negative, if I’m going to be sad or whatever, I may miss the nugget.”