Pete Frates - Baseball Coach - Boston College Athletics

Pete Frates

Title:
Director of Baseball Operations

Pete Frates joined the Boston College baseball team as the director of baseball operations during the 2012 season. A former player, Frates captained the Eagles his senior year in 2007.

Frates was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in March 2012. He played in the outfield for the Maroon and Gold from 2004-07. In both his junior and senior year, he tied for the team lead with five home runs, finishing his career with 11. He also tied for a team-high eight sacrifice hits his senior year and led the Eagles with 19 stolen bases.

The centerfielder set a modern BC record with eight RBIs in one game, going 4-for-6 with a grand slam, a three-run homer and an RBI double at Maryland on April 14, 2007. In Frates’ junior year, he went 4-for-4 with a home run, a double and three RBIs in the Eagles’ 10-2 win over Harvard in the Beanpot Championship at Fenway Park.

Prior to playing at The Heights, Frates played baseball, football and hockey at St. John’s Prep in Danvers, Mass. He was named a Catholic Conference All-Star his senior year and was a member of the 2002 and 2003 conference championship teams.

Frates created the Baseball Mentor Night, when former players speak to current Eagles about life after baseball. He and entire support system, dubbed “Team FrateTrain,” work to raise ALS awareness, education and funds for research. In 2012, the Pete Frates #3 Fund was established to help subsidize medical care and expenses not covered by health insurance. In May 2017, the Frates family teamed up with the ALS Association to create the Peter Frates Home Health Initiative to help provide in-home caregiving assistance for individuals suffering from ALS in Massachusetts.

In the summer of 2014, Frates championed the Ice Bucket Challenge through the use of social media. Along with the amount of awareness brought to ALS, over $220 million was raised to help find a cure. In the spring of 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that treatments were approved to slow down the progression of ALS, showing the direct impact of the social media campaign.

Frates was awarded Sports Illustrated’s Inspiration of the Year in December of 2014 and the SportsCenter documentary detailing his journey was nominated for an Emmy. On Dec. 13, 2016, he was presented with the 2017 NCAA Inspiration Award in his home by NCAA president Dr. Mark Emeret with his family, friends and the BC Eagles looking on. In the spring of 2017, the bucket he used for his own Ice Bucket Challenge at Fenway Park that fateful summer, along with memorabilia from his playing days at Boston College, were donated to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., before a Red Sox game.

The Eagles retired Frates’ No. 3 at Shea Field on May 7, 2016 at the Fifth Annual ALS Awareness Game. In the fall of 2016, Endicott College, in his hometown of Beverly, Mass., named a dormitory after Frates.

To learn more about Frates’s story, visit www.petefrates.com.

Frates graduated from Boston College in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in communications. He currently resides in Beverly with wife, Julie (BC ’12), and daughter, Lucy.