Summary
Soon they start an ALS golf tournament that now raises six figures-plus annually. When Schilling becomes a Diamondback in 2000, he pledges $500,000 to ALS and $500,000 to United Way. It is his means of demonstrating to Arizona fans his desire to become part of their community. "I can't ask them to support my causes if I don't support theirs," he says. They also quickly team with the local ALS chapter, then a mom-and-pop group with a $350,000 budget and limited impact on the state.
See the full content of this document
Extract
A Light in the Darkness
On a sultry late spring night in Washington, D.C., Shonda Schilling stands on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial.
In 72 hours, her husband will win his fifth game of this season, to the delight of thousands of ALS patients nationwide. But on this evening, she stares through the light of hundreds of can- dies, looking toward the White House far in the dis- tance, and she cries.She cries for the ALS families gathered before her. They are assembled for a candlelight vigil that marks the start of an annual effort by ALS advocates to lobby Congress for desperately needed additional research funding. Earlier, she began the program with a brief welcome, then listened to songs and speeches whose poignant words still linger in the heavy air. She recognizes some of the patients sitting before her in wheelchairs, and she recognizes family members who have lost loved ones in the year since the last advocacy period. When she rises to say goodbye, she struggles to find the appropriate message.Neither Shonda nor Curt Schilling has ALS. No one in their immediate family has been subjected to the awful pain and slow agony created by its unknown origin, unrelenting intrusion and certain death sentence. Yet they long ago were touched by the needs of ALS patients, the hopelessness of the disease, the anger it produces, realizing there still is no cure, not even a life-prolonging drug, although 65 years have passed since Lou Gehrig and ALS were so intimately linked.This is baseball's disease, and its most visible supporters are the Schillings, who have spent the majority of Curt's time in the majors, a tenure now in its 17th year, pushing the needs and hopes surrounding ALS in front of a pu...See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
