By Abby Eisenberg

Winona Daily News

WINONA — With 11 seconds left in the fourth quarter of the state championship game, the Winona Senior High School Winhawks football team was in a bind.

A star player had just limped off Paul Giel Field, injured. The score was 16-21. They needed to 11 yards to win.

Coming to the rescue was four-year-old Gavin Quimby, better known Thursday as “Super-Gav.”

Dressed like his all-time favorite superhero in a blue Superman shirt — with a “G” instead of an “S” — and a red cape draped over his shoulders, he arrived to the field in the back of a police car and joined the huddle.

Gavin, 4, was recently diagnosed with a rare and often fatal neurological disorder called metachromatic leukodystrophy, which causes the brain and nervous system to progressively lose function. So friends and family, with help from across the community, gave Gavin a gift Thursday — the key to the city and a chance to save it.

The football scene was filmed as part of a movie in which Super-Gav is a hero multiple times — scoring the winning touchdown for the Winhawks, putting out a fire near an elementary school, retrieving a stolen purse for a damsel in distress. Written, orchestrated and filmed by family friends and community supporters, the final product will be shown at a day-long benefit event July 26 to help cover Gavin’s medical expenses.

First, Super-Gav had to save the day.

“We want Gavin! We want Gavin!” cheered daycare classes, kids in summer camps, friends, family and community members who gathered in droves Thursday morning to fill the bleachers, undeterred by the rain. They cheered Gavin on with handmade posters, flags, and miniature Super-Gav figures pasted to popsicle sticks.

Once the play was under way, the players got the ball to Gavin, then lifted him and carried him into the end zone for the winning touchdown.

The team circled up around Gavin, the crowd went wild, and a line of police cars parked behind the end zone let their sirens wail.

But Super-Gav wasn’t done — he had other adventures ahead.

A diagnosis

Gavin has always had “his own special walk,” his dad, Nick Quimby, explained.

But he and his wife, Shanna, began to worry when he started to fall a lot, and had trouble going up and down stairs. They noticed he was also behind his peers in development of motor skills.

The first doctor they visited last summer told them everything was fine — that Gavin would grow out of it.

They wanted to believe him, Nick said: “As a parent, you don’t want to think there’s anything wrong with your child.”

But the family’s daycare provider convinced them to seek a second opinion. After seeing a string of doctors, Gavin was diagnosed in December 2013 with leukodystrophy — a rare genetic disorder, most frequently seen in children. Within the last couple weeks, blood test results have shown he’s got the metachromatic form of the disease.

It’s usually devastating and fatal, progressively deteriorating skills like walk and speech.

There’s no cure, but the Quimbys are doing everything they can.

They’ve fitted Gavin for braces — they’re covered in Superman figures and his family calls them his “superlegs” — to help his stability. They’ve set up physical and occupational therapy. They’re testing for a bone marrow transplant. They’ll travel in August to a specialist in Washington D.C., for advice.

None of that is easy, Nick said, so the support of family, friends and the community means a lot.

Especially since they’re the ones usually taking care of others.

Nick is an officer with the Winona Police Department. Gavin’s mom, Shanna, is a surgical technician with Gundersen Health System. He’s served a tour in Iraq in the Marine Corps. She was a medic in the U.S. Army.

“I feel so awesome, and just so overwhelmed,” Shanna said of the community’s response to her son’s illness. “It’s completely amazing how much people have come together to support a little guy they didn’t even know two weeks ago.”

A growing idea

When Winona Police sergeant Jay Rasmussen, who works with Nick and is a friend a neighbor of the Quimbys, learned about the fundraiser, he began to think of a way to put a twist on it. Inspired by 5-year-old leukemia patient Miles Scott — who was named “Bat Kid” in November 2013 after the Make-A-Wish Foundation turned San Francisco in Gotham for the day — he decided they’d make a movie, with Gavin as the superhero.

So he began writing the script — and reached out to friends for help. From there, the idea took on a life on its own.

Rasmussen called WSHS football coach John Cassellius and asked if he’d put together a few players. Cassellius said he’d get two full teams. He called Winona Fire Department Captain Joel Corcoran. Corcoran suggested they take Gavin for a ride in a fire truck. Rasmussen asked his boss, Winona Police Chief Paul Bostrack, if he’d give a thank-you speech to Gavin at the end of the day. Bostrack suggested to also get Winona Mayor Mark Peterson to play along.