Mighty Mikey is not yet 9, and has been battling cancer for more than 6 years.

Long distance relationships can be hard, but Merchant Marine was determined to make it work.

And it has, as the strongest ones often do.

The Mariners’ relationship with Mikey Weinstein dates to the fall of 2009, when he was “adopted” by the team barely a year after he was diagnosed with brain and spine cancer. At the time of his diagnosis, Sept. 17, 2008, Mikey wasn’t even 3 years old.

Mikey’s mom, Chrissie, said she laughed when the family was first approached about the pairing. “I said to my husband, ‘College football teams? What are they going to do with a 4-year-old?’

“And [today], I don’t know where he would be without that connection.”

Merchant Marine and Mikey were connected through the Friends of Jaclyn Foundation, an organization that pairs children battling pediatric brain tumors with college and high school sports teams.

The group was founded by Denis Murphy, whose daughter Jaclyn was diagnosed in 2004 with a malignant brain tumor. According to the foundation’s website, Jaclyn became an honorary member of a university lacrosse team. From that connection, the inspiration for the foundation arose.

“Other parents of children who have this deadly disease saw what it did for Jaclyn, and basically Murphy took it on himself to try to match kids with pediatric brain cancer to college athletic teams,” said Mariners coach Mike Toop. Toop has known Murphy for decades, having coached him in the mid-1980s at SUNY-Albany.

According to the Friends of Jaclyn website, 11 Division III teams – Amherst, Carroll, Chapman, Kean, Lake Forest, Lawrence, Merchant Marine, North Central, Rowan, Thomas More and Trinity (Conn.) – have taken part in the program over the years.

Mikey, who is now 8½, became involved after his nurse practitioner in the Rockaway, N.Y., area recommended it to his family. The turnaround to find him a match was lightning-fast – about a month. And it hasn’t slowed since.

The youngster began going to practices and to home games, supporting his adopted team. The players, in turn, have Mikey’s picture in the locker room and on the bus when they travel. One year, Toop said, the team had a quilt made for Mikey that had a quote from each player stitched into it.

“They team is a huge support for him,” Chrissie Weinstein said. “I think it’s one of the few places he can go and be treated like a kid. He walks in, and everyone says, ‘Mikey! Mikey!’ And he loves it. It really has been so good for him. It really is a mutually beneficial relationship.”

Last year, the relationship became a long-distance one.

Mikey was first diagnosed while the family lived in Florida, but later they relocated to New York, where Weinstein grew up. In 2012, Superstorm Sandy did the unthinkable and, while they were sheltering at a family member’s home, made the Weinsteins’ home unlivable.

The family ultimately decided to move back to Florida. Toop said it was a quality-of-life decision made for Mikey’s sake.

“It’s a long-distance arrangement right now,” Toop said, calling the boy an inspiration to his team. “We’re struggling a little bit this year and lost a tough game to Rochester last weekend, but then you see the Facebook post from Mikey, and losing a football game is kind of miniscule compared to what Mikey and his family are going through. ...

“What this child and this family exhibit on a daily basis is pretty awe-inspiring,” he said.

During football season, the Facebook page for Team Mighty Mikey is peppered with posts from Mikey holding signs to encourage his adopted family. On game day, he’s found closely listening to the web broadcast or watching a video feed to see how his Mariners are doing. Hearing the emotion and admiration and joy that come from those close to Mikey, it’s clear that it really is his team.

“They’ve made such an effort to get to know him and really just treat him as a typical kid, despite everything he’s going through,” Weinstein said.

As part of the education at the Merchant Marine Academy, cadets travel the world on commercial vessels for large chunks of their sophomore and junior years. It’s common for the students to send postcards from far-flung places to their favorite little fan. Even after graduation, some students still visit with Mikey at his home in Florida. One Merchant Marine alum joined the Marines after graduation and had his entire unit send Mikey a care package.

Every time Mikey gets something in the mail from a member of the team, he eagerly boasts that it’s “from my football friends.”

“No matter what, whether I’m reading him a message on the Facebook page or he’s getting a postcard in the mail, he loves that connection,” Mikey’s mom said.

She said she can’t imagine finding a better team to have adopted her son.

“They look past the tumor and see the kid,” she said. “I think that’s one of the greatest parts of these kinds of relationships. … They don’t make it about them; they make it about him. And for a kid who is going through what he’s going through, when his whole life is about cancer and treatments, chemo and vomiting and craziness, to have a bunch of guys who are so much bigger and older pay this kind of attention to him and want to have fun with him, it’s a huge thing and a great way to take his mind off of everything that’s going on in his life.”

Team Mighty Mikey can be found on Facebook at facebook.com/teammightymikey and on Twitter at @TeamMightyMikey.