NFL

Experience ‘made a dream come true’ for Giants fan fighting lymphoma

WHAT A NIGHT: Adam Merchant Jr., 15 (center) addresses coach Tom Coughlin and the Giants after their 38-10 stomping of the Packers Sunday night. The youngster, fighting Burkitt lymphoma, inspired Big Blue on Friday, when he told them to “play like World Champions.” (Evan Pinkus)

WHAT A NIGHT: Adam Merchant Jr., 15 (center) addresses coach Tom Coughlin and the Giants after their 38-10 stomping of the Packers Sunday night. The youngster, fighting Burkitt lymphoma, inspired Big Blue on Friday, when he told them to “play like World Champions.” (
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It started with a brotherly feud and evolved into an inspirational speech that very well could have turned the Giants’ season around.

Adam Merchant Jr. is a 15-year-old from Barre, Vt., battling with Burkitt lymphoma, a fast-growing form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. On Friday, in a locker room filled with some of the most motivated athletes in the world, Merchant was allowed the opportunity to speak to the Giants as a result of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and his words rung in the ears of the players two days later as they went out and trounced the Packers, 38-10.

“It’s pretty heart-warming,” Merchant told The Post yesterday after an adrenaline-filled sleepless night. “Makes you feel good.”

Adam Merchant Sr. was even more taken aback by the impact, dumbfounded at the influence his son had on the team he has been rooting for since his own Vermont childhood.

“I was ecstatic for him,” Adam Sr. said. “It’s really hard to put it into words. It’s something he’s fought for, with all the things he [has] gone through, and he got something he really deserves.”

At the team’s practice facility near MetLife Stadium, almost a full three weeks removed from their most recent win and their season teetering on the brink at 6-4, Adam Jr. got in front of the men he had only previously seen on television and told them to “play like World Champions.”

“When he said, ‘Play like champions,’ I think we all stopped and thought about it,” said guard Chris Snee. “We are the champions, and we need to play like that.”

After the Giants dominated Packers quarterback and reigning league MVP Aaron Rodgers, there was Adam Jr. again, in the locker room, on one knee in the middle of the circle, surrounded by coach Tom Coughlin, Justin Tuck and Jason Pierre-Paul, whose jersey Adam Jr. wore Sunday night.

“I told him he needs to go into motivational speaking,” Tuck said, “because he kind of woke us up a little bit.”

Adam Sr. used to sit his son in front of the television for Giants games as early as the age of three, but “it wasn’t until he was nine or 10 when he started realizing what was going on,” the father said. The son’s first real memory of “having a passion for the Giants,” as he put it, was in the 2007 Super Bowl, when the team beat the Patriots and ended New England’s perfect season.

And his favorite player on that team?

“Michael Strahan,” Adam Jr. said. “I liked his sense of humor, and he’s awesome.”

Adam Sr. began his rooting for the Giants long before Strahan, all as a result of his brother being a big Cowboys fan. Forced to watch the games, Adam naturally chose the team opposing the Cowboys, which in the 1980s seemed to always be the Giants.

“It was something about the Giants,” Adam Jr. said, the conviction in his voice of someone who has never known another rooting interest. “I just loved them.”

Eventually, Adam Sr. said his brother joined the U.S. Army and died in 2006 while fighting in Iraq. Now his son is fighting for his life, and in doing so, found a way to pass a little inspiration along to the men he idolizes.

“They didn’t just make a wish come true,” Adam Jr. said, “they made a dream come true.”