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Steph Curry calls to thank nurse who wears his jersey under her scrubs while fighting coronavirus

ryan young
Staff writer
·4 min read

Doctors, nurses and other hospital workers have been busy fighting the COVID-19 pandemic on the front lines for weeks now, a daunting and grueling task.

So when Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry heard that a nurse at the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland had been wearing his jersey under her scrubs at work for inspiration, he made sure to reach out.

Curry FaceTimed Shelby Delaney and several of her co-workers who were all decked out in Warriors gear on Tuesday afternoon before their night shift started.

“I can’t thank God enough for what you’re doing,” Curry told Delaney and her co-workers. “Just the sacrifice, selflessness, the way that everybody is coming together, thank you so much for just what you do, your heart, and the inspiration y’all are providing for everybody.”

Delaney is a massive Warriors fan, and even went to a Warriors game on her first date with her husband. She was also one of the first ICU nurses at the hospital to volunteer to help care for coronavirus patients, according to The Mercury News.

Last week, Delaney posted a photo of her wearing one of her 10 Curry jerseys to work to her Facebook page.

“On Monday morning as I was getting ready for work, I found myself feeling powerless and defeated. It was in that moment that I knew I needed to summon my inner warrior,” she wrote in part, while asking for donations to local hospitals. “So I threw on my Steph jersey under my scrubs and started brainstorming how I could be part of the solution.

“What I quickly realized is that there is strength in numbers, and that I have a team of people surrounding me that are eager to help, but just need some direction.”

Delaney told Curry that she first started wearing his jersey at the beginning of her time working at the hospital when she was trying to adjust to the new job and deal with issues at home at the same time. She also started writing Curry’s motto from the Bible, “I can do all things” on her collar.

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“When I first started my job here, and it’s like a really steep learning curve,” Delaney told Curry. “You’ve got two people that you’re trying to make sure don’t die all shift, and then just had a lot of tough stuff going on with family. There’s a lot of times I did want to like just quit, give up and do something easier. That’s kind of when I first started wearing the jersey. It was just my way of kind of gathering my strength, reminding myself that I’ve got this and that I can do it, and then also [to remind me] just to kind of lead with love and lead with joy the way you do and embrace my inner child and bring love and joy [to work].”

There were nearly 430,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States as of Wednesday night, according to The New York Times, and more than 19,000 in California alone. The Bay Area was one of the first regions in the country to be hit hard by the virus, too.

Curry, naturally, took time out of the phone call to thank Delaney and her co-workers for their help fighting the pandemic.

“What we do, it’s fun, it’s fire and all that, but more people need to know about what goes on in your world … especially in a pandemic like this,” Curry said. “So thank you to you, the whole staff, everybody. We’re praying for you, thinking about you guys.”

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