Ed Rothe Memorial Fund

I was lucky enough to grow up in the same town as my mom's brother and his family. I have a cousin the same age as I am from that family and we spent a lot of time together with sleepovers and family trips, etc. I love spending time with the Rothe family and love them dearly. My uncle, Ed, passed away in March in the second inning of a softball tournament he was playing in from a pulmonary embolism- basically similar to a heart attack. He played short stop for the Denver area Senior Softball League. Who knew there was such a thing?
Anyway, after his untimely and shocking death, his family, along with 2 pastors out of St. George, put together a memorial fund in his name to raise money to provide as many senior teams as possible with a defibrilator- hopefully to prevent this from happening to anyone else. By the first of July they had raised enough money to present a defibrilator to his team. The team just happened to be playing a tournament in Salt Lake that weekend and the sponsors wanted a family member to be there for the presentation. Ed's wife was not available for the weekend, so she asked my mom to go in her place. I went along too, mostly to take pictures and get out of the house.
It was a really neat thing to be a part of in his memory and it was nice to meet his teammates and hear how much they liked playing with and being around Ed. After his death, they laid his jersey and glove in his position (short stop) for the first inning of each game, during which no opposing team would hit there, and they also kept his name in the batting lineup and took an automatic out each time it would have been his turn to bat.
It is so nice to hear stories like this when it seems our world is turning more and more into a competitive dog-eat-dog kind of place. Even our recreation often gets out of hand and taken to the extreme. As if our family isn't competitive enough! I hope that I can help Tyse (and the other kids) learn that PEOPLE, respect and the love of the game are far more important than any tournament, trophy, or medal ever will be.