Join me to Walk to Defeat ALS Sunday October 19

While my new blog will focus mainly on One on One related subjects and all the fun stuff that goes along with the guys we love to get to know… the first entry is about a cause that’s close to my heart. This Sunday morning October 19th is the Walk to Defeat ALS. ALS is also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. My father died of this in 1994.

I’ve been involved in the local chapter since its beginning in 2002. A key mission is to help people with ALS and their families. If you’d like to help, please go to the website at www.alsasd.org and click on the Walk to Defeat logo. You can form or join a team. If you can’t make it, be a Virtual Walker with a donation. Join my team if you like… Wally’s Walkers… in honor of my dad. I’d love to have you part of the effort. Donations are accepted year round.

I have more I’d like to share about my dad and his influence even on my approach to One on One… but I’ll save that for another time.

I’m blessed to be in a position to not only help those with ALS, but to overlap those efforts with the support of some key groups: my employer Cox Communications has sponsored the Walk since year one and allows me to do features for Channel 4’s pre-game and Postgame shows; the San Diego Padres help raise awareness through Lou Gehrig Night at PETCO Park and sponsors the Walk; and players have offered their name and visibility to the Chapter…. specifically Mark Loretta, Scott Linebrink and Randy Wolf. They might not be Padres anymore, but their partnership has been important in raising funds and awareness.

I’ve done a number of features linking ALS, baseball and the community and October 16th on Postgame at 10pm you’ll meet Robert Tierney who, as a kid, played baseball with Lou Gehrig back in 1939. Ironically, Mr. Tierney’s wife would later die of ALS, too. His message at 85 years old? Live life every day as a gift.