July 25, 2013
CollegeBaseballInsider.com Names
Winners
of 2013 Tom Walter College
Baseball Inspiration Award
 RICHMOND,
Va. –
A college baseball staff member battling Lou Gehrig’s disease
with grace and determination and another coach who lost his wife
to cancer and dedicated much of his energy to fundraising
headline the 2013 winners of CollegeBaseballInsider.com’s
third-annual Tom Walter College Baseball Inspiration Award,
which recognize examples of inspiration in college baseball.
Boston College director of baseball operations Pete Frates and
Illinois State pitching coach Bill Mohl lead the 2013 class of
winners. Joining them are Davidson head coach Dick Cooke,
Minnesota pitching coach Todd Oakes and pitcher Jordan Jess,
Northwestern infielder Cody Stevens (pictured right) and the
University of Texas-Pan American baseball team.
The award, started by CollegeBaseballInsider.com (CBI) in 2011,
is named for Tom Walter, the head coach at Wake Forest who
donated a kidney to freshman outfielder Kevin Jordan before the
2011 season.
“It’s our honor to shine a well-deserved light on an incredible
group of student athletes and coaches,” said Sean Ryan,
co-founder of CollegeBaseballInsider.com, which has covered
Division I college baseball since 2002. “Our winners, as well as
the other finalists, have made a tremendous impact to their
teams, and more important, their communities and beyond. We
congratulate them and thank them for being an inspiration on an
off the field.”
While a player at
Boston College, Frates was known for playing with intensity,
energy and heart. Five years after captaining the Eagles, those
same characteristics were on display when in the spring of 2012,
he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS),
or Lou Gehrig’s disease, at the age of 27. No longer able to
keep his sales job, Eagles coach Mike Gambino hired Frates as
the team’s director of baseball operations. In addition to
assisting in many phases of the Eagles’ program, Frates has been
on a mission to
raise awareness and funds for ALS research. He and his
family started the
Pete Frates #3 Fund, and the “Frate Train” helps to
subsidize medical care and expenses not covered by health
insurance.
On
March 12, 2013, Mohl received a call from his wife Sarah, who had been battling a
rare form of cervical cancer since the previous August. His
wife, 28, told him she had two weeks to live. The day Mohl told
the Redbirds he had to leave to be by her side, they beat
Miami 17-6. Mohl’s
wife passed away on March 25, and he returned to the
Redbirds on April 5 – Illinois State responded by going 24-4,
including a program-best 12-game winning streak, en route to its
first outright Missouri Valley Conference regular-season title.
Mohl’s pitchers had a lot to do with it, as Chris Razo was the
first ISU pitcher to be named conference pitcher of the year,
and Dan Savas finished 10-0. Along the way, the Redbirds
collected $12,000 for the Vs Cancer Foundation, and the entire
team shaved their heads after reaching the goal. Mohl has raised
nearly $25,000 on his own through Pelotonia.
 In
September 2012, Cooke, Davidson’s longtime coach, was driving
home when he was rear-ended, forcing his car off the highway and
into a wooded area. He sustained multiple serious injuries,
including bleeding on his brain, broken ribs, a collapsed lung,
a broken right tibia, a broken right ankle and a broken right
cheekbone.
The veteran coach walked with a crutch for a large chunk of
the 2013 season, and toward the end of the year, his limp was
still noticeable. On the field Cooke’s Wildcats were picked to
finish last in the SoCon but finished a half-game shy of
qualifying for the conference tournament.
 At
Minnesota,
Oakes (left) ignored symptoms that something wasn’t quite right to get
through the 2012 season. Shortly after the season, he was
diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and spent 80 days in the
hospital, including a spell after receiving a bone marrow
transplant from his brother. Oakes returned this season to lead
the Golden Gophers’ pitchers, including Jess. Jess, a sophomore,
was inspired by Oakes’ ordeal and signed up with Be The Match to
be a bone marrow donor. Two short months later, Jess learned
that he was a match and in February went through a
procedure to donate bone marrow to a needy recipient.
 Stevens
was playing summer ball for the Chillicothe Paints of the
Prospect League when he was hit in the head by a pitch. Stevens,
the son of Northwestern coach Paul Stevens, was removed from the
game and was on the team bus when the lingering effects of the
pitch started to take hold. He was rushed to a hospital in
Beckley,
W.Va., where doctors determined he should be flown to
Charleston, W.Va. Doctors performed
emergency surgery for a blood clot that nearly took his life.
The road back has been slow, as Stevens practiced with the
Wildcats but redshirted this season. But he’s returned to the
playing field with the Paints this summer. Along the way, he’s
forged a lasting friendship with Lipscomb’s Will Blalock, who
delivered the unfortunate pitch. And he’s
inspired his teammates with his faith, as well as his desire
to get back on the field.
 In 2011 and 2012,
Texas Pan-American held a pair of blood drives for a local
4-year-old who was diagnosed with a rare bone marrow disease.
The local girl made a full recovery. While on a trip to
UT-Brownsville, an NAIA school, a Brownsville woman asked to
meet Broncs coach Manny Mantrana. The family had seen a story
about the Broncs’ support of Jiada Grace Ortiz and wondered if
they could help their son Nolan Naranjo, a 5-year-old who also
had aplastic anemia. On
May 12, 2012, the Broncs
hosted a blood drive at their game to benefit Nolan with all
donors getting free tickets and the Naranjo family enjoying the
game in a suite with gift baskets and free food and drink from
the concession stand. Nolan threw out the first pitch. Nolan’s
condition worsened over the summer as he developed
myelodysplastic syndrome and needed a bone marrow transplant.
The baseball team decided to
hold a bone marrow drive for Nolan on
September 12, 2012. Every member of the team
registered to become bone marrow donors and encouraged 250
people to register. They sent a video of the drive to Nolan.
Later, when the child lost his hair, the Broncs
shaved their heads and took a team photo holding up letters
that spelled out “NOLAN #1.” The team sent the photo to Nolan,
and it hung in his hospital room for the rest of his stay. He
also came to start calling the Broncs “my team.” In the end,
Nolan’s mother, who was a 50 percent match, donated her bone
marrow and Nolan’s body accepted the donation. The Broncs
celebrated with
another Blood Drive in Nolan’s honor on
January 29, 2013. The timing was perfect,
as Nolan was home from the hospital that weekend, so his family
was able to take him to see his team.
Other finalists included Monmouth Ty Godfrey, a high schooler
who was diagnosed with a brain tumor when he was 7 years old and
continues to inspire the Hawks by serving as a batboy and
helping prep the field for batting practice and games, and
Lafayette’s Cory Spera and Robert Tatum, who went above and
beyond in reaching out to Virginia teen Nick Balenger, a star
high school pitcher who was paralyzed when he dove over a wave
while on vacation. (Balenger surprised his classmates at
graduation by
walking across the stage with the help of a walker.)
Finalists were chosen by the staff of CollegeBaseballInsider.com
and Walter. Previous winners, including Clemson’s Mike Kent, UT
Martin’s Carter Smith and Valparaiso’s Tanner Vavra – all
honored in 2012 but still playing college baseball in 2013 –
were not eligible.
CollegeBaseballInsider.com just completed its 12th season of
free daily coverage of NCAA Division I college baseball,
including scores, schedules, composite poll, journals, features
and notes.
2012 Tom Walter College Baseball Inspiration Award winners
Marty Gantt, College of Charleston
Mike Kent, Clemson
Alex Silver, Texas
Carter Smith, UT Martin
Tanner Vavra, Valparaiso
2011 Tom Walter College Baseball Inspiration Award winners
Tom Walter, Wake Forest
Cory Hahn, Arizona State
Johnathan Taylor, Georgia
Bayler Teal, South Carolina
(photos courtesy of
each school's Media Relations Office) |
