Tom Coughlin and Rex Ryan are going to team up to help Paul Zimmerman on May 18.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/peter_king/03/29/march30/1.html

Tom Coughlin and Rex Ryan are going to team up to help Paul Zimmerman on May 18.

In a dual act of selflessness that humbles me, the Giants and Jets head coaches will come together in a fundraiser to help the ailing Dr. Z try to kick-start his long road to recovery from a series of three strokes. Coughlin and Ryan will appear at a dinner and silent auction on that Monday night in West Orange, N.J., with the proceeds from the $225-a-plate evening to benefit some aggressive therapy and home-outfitting costs for Zimmerman, who is trying to come back from strokes that have left him unable to speak, read and write.

The highlight of the evening (or lowlight, depending on your opinion of the moderator) will be a 40-minute football roundtable discussion with Ryan and Coughlin, hosted by me. You'll have the chance to fire away at the two coaches, too.

What this all comes down to is this: Zim doesn't want to sit quietly in the corner, smiling and not understanding much of what is happening to him, while he lives out the rest of his life. He wants to be the smartest pro football writer on earth again. For that to happen, he needs intense intervention. Now. And so many of you have written to ask, "What can we do to help?'' This is what you can do -- you can come to this dinner, and have a great football night out, and know you're helping Dr. Z be Dr. Z again.

"Paul doesn't want to settle for just a partial recovery,'' his wife, Linda, said. "He wants to be back working, and to do that, he needs intensive therapy.'' Therapy like the intensive and innovative (and expensive) six-week University of Michigan Aphasia Program, where he'll get 23 hours of challenging speech therapy a week ... and which isn't covered by insurance.

One of the reasons we want to do something to try to help is because Zim's trying so hard to help himself. In the morning, Linda picks up the newspapers, and he'll stare at the pages he's become so familiar with over the years, sometimes for hours. "He's seeing something, and he's fighting so hard to be able to read again,'' she says. "He'll look at the agate type of the sports section for hours, trying to comprehend. It's amazing to watch. It just drives me to try to help him as much as we can.''

I'm so impressed that it took about six minutes to arrange this. Ryan has a calendar already stuffed with all the things a rookie head coach must do, and Coughlin's football and charity dockets (he is one of the most charity-conscious coaches I've ever met) are chock-full.

I'll have more details, particularly on the auction items, on Mondays to come. But we've got some good ones for you. Some unique opportunities. You'll love them.

This is about as bad a time for a fundraiser as we could have, but in the immortal words of Coughlin, Ryan and every coach alive, the economy is what it is. Tickets (again, $225 apiece, or $1,500 for a table of eight, and come on you businesses, I know you've got it in you) can be had by sending a check, payable to "Dr. Z/Nothing is Impossible Foundation'' to:

Dr. Z/Nothing is Impossible Foundation
21 Pine St.
Suite 202
Rockaway, N.J. 07866

For further information, please email Barbara Neibart at bneibart@yahoo.com, or contact me at siwriters@simail.com. Also, if you're interested in volunteering on the night of the event, please indicate that, and we'll be in touch with you as we get closer to May 18.

I know many of you who have loved reading Zim over the years will not be able to attend because you live far away from New Jersey, and maybe in a different continent. You'll have the chance to bid on some of the auction items through this column, as I'll explain as we get closer to the event.

Our goal is to have Zim haranguing coaches and commissioners and broadcasters and quarterbacks as soon as possible. Thanks for helping, if you can, and thanks for thinking of Zim.