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Last week, Coach Ian Holding of the Rips Brewers 15U Elite team passed away on the field while during a Seattle Elite League game. Aaron Horrocks, Founder and Director of the Rips program has marshaled the resources of the Rips community and attained grief counseling for those immediately affected by the loss. But Ian's family could use additional support in these very difficult times. Please visit
Coach Ian's memorial website and please help these folks in any small way you can. I apologize for the plea, but these are good folks and they could use the help. Thanks.
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Please excuse me for double-posting my response in the General Items Forum here, too. One of Coach Holding's player' Mom is a friend of the family and is helping them out through this ordeal, and I promised her I would try to get word out on this as well, with the hope that it will "go viral" and the true giving spirit of the baseball community will give back to the Holding family. Thank you, tres_arboles, for beating me to this. I agree with gotwood4sale, you are to be lauded for your compasion and have no reason to apologize.

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Tres_arboles, thank you for posting this. I check in on the Northwest Forum every now and then, but it has been a while. I actually meant to post this myself.

I knew Ian Holding a little bit. He was the father of a catcher who (at least used to be) affectionately be known as "Lumpy" and who is the same age as my son. We regularly saw his teams in local league and tournament play (though not this year, as my son chose to "play up" a year and Ian and his son did not). Both were a big part of the Kent Bulldogs program before moving to RIPS last year. My son's team had quite a few games with that Bulldog team in tournaments and faced off against that RIPS team 2-3 times last year in 14U ball. I remember my first impressions of Ian as this a loud, gruff-voiced coach whose teams teams sort of rubbed me the wrong way. That is, until I spent a couple of hours between games at a tournament in the parking lot talking to him about baseball, family, and how much fun it is to get to experience all this with our sons.

Despite a tremendously tragic loss, Ian Holding was one of those lucky people who died doing exactly what he loved more than anything else - coaching his son and his son's friends on a baseball field. The story repeated on the one of the stations' news coverage was that, in the last moments before he collapsed, the umpire had been looking down his way (remember, this was a fairly loud coach) and one of his players asked him why Blue kept looking down at him. Ian replied that it was because 'ol Blue must've thought he was good lookin' and then he laughed a hearty laugh. If I have to go early, I'd sure like it to be doing what I love, right after sharing a good laugh at a bad joke.

But that is really no consolation for his family. I can't imagine playing in a game my father was coaching and watching him die on the field (or watching from the stands - Ian's 7-year-old son, as well as his wife, was also there when this happened). For that matter, I can't imagine the trauma that ANY of these player experienced that day - and I knew and/or had coached at least four of them. Words cannot express how deeply felt my sympathies are for ALL of them.

Tres_arboles has already mentioned this, but there has been a memorial fund set up for Ian and the Holding family at Key Bank here in the Puget Sound region (I think the Ian Holding Memorial Fund is mentioned at the end of the link tres_arboles linked to). Like many people, the Holdings struggled to make ends meet as the economy turned in recent years, and the younger boy has some special needs. In addition to dealing with unimaginable grief, they can really use the help of the Greater Baseball Family to get back on their feet and move on as best they can.

He was a good man. I can't imagine the pain and sorrow his family, and the RIPS family, must be going through and my thoughts are truly with them. I hope that all of you will join me in sending your good thoughts, sympathies, good wishes, and prayers to the Holding family as well as the RIPS Baseball community.

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