Passing The Frate Train Torch

More Information on Pete Frates

The best traditions often start innocently and organically. Someone, somewhere, does something they might find nondescript and it simply catches on. It slowly becomes something bigger, picking up steam until, without rhyme or reason, it becomes an annual phenomenon.

The Boston Marathon is one of the city's best-known institutions; anyone who grew up in the region has some form of memory with it. It's a 26.2-mile block party celebrated by its inhabitants, a rock concert at a running race. It brings out the best in the city and its residents, both famous and relatively unknown.

Within that long, storied tradition, a new tradition is growing. For the third straight year, a runner will carry a torch for Pete Frates '07, Boston College baseball's alumnus continuing his fight against Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. From journalist Steve Buckley to baseball assistant coach Greg Sullivan, it's now Andrew Frates' turn to deliver the message of courage his older brother carries every day.

"Growing up in the area, we've always been well aware of the Marathon," Andrew Frates said. "So it's always been in the back of my mind to run the event. When the Ice Bucket Challenge really made Pete Boston's hero, it became an opportunity to Boston's signature event for Boston's hero. And then the torch was passed from Steve Buckley to Coach Sullivan. After Sully ran it, I decided that when he ran it, I could do it too, and I decided to run. The best traditions start organically, and the Ice Bucket Challenge was organic. Now there's a passing of the torch in the Marathon to me, and I hope to make Pete proud by running it for him."

"I grew up in Needham and the Marathon was always a big deal," Sullivan said. "It's a great day for everyone to come into Boston and celebrate, but it's also a holiday for us. Patriots' Day is a day that a lot of people don't understand unless you're from the area, but it's something that we hold very special. After I ran the race, Andrew talked to me about it and if he could do it. I looked at him and told him that there was no doubt he could do it. It's an opportunity to slam home awareness for ALS and to pass the torch. Pete's an exceptional person and spreading awareness is the clear definitive mission of what we want to do. This is a great way to lay out that mission."

And so a new tradition is started in honor of a Boston College legend with a now well-known story. Diagnosed with ALS in 2012, Pete has attacked the disease with every fiber of both his body and spirit. Though the disease robbed him of his ability to walk and talk, Pete has fought with people stepping to the plate for him to aid in fundraising and awareness efforts.

Where the average life expectancy is two to five years from the time of diagnosis, Frates is now past the five-year mark, becoming an icon in the process. Summer 2014's Ice Bucket Challenge raised more than $220 million to fight the disease and it directly led to the identification of gene associated with the disease.

"Pete's mission is clear," Coach Sullivan said. "His job is raise awareness and funding for ALS and that includes coming up with creative ways to spread that awareness. The Ice Bucket Challenge was the pinnacle of that, but the Boston Marathon is another avenue for us to put ALS on the platform. Pete's such an adventurous guy that with his athleticism, if he could've run this, there's no doubt in my mind this race would've wound up on his list."

The Marathon itself is grueling. For 26.2 miles, through the community streets of places like Hopkinton, Framingham, Newton, Wellesley and Boston, runners push their bodies to previously-unthinkable places. It's a race that requires intense training through winter months, building the body up through long runs while plateauing back down in preparation.

"The biggest thing (to training) has been one heck of a winter," Frates said. "February was great but March was brutal where it was zero degrees with wind chill and snow every weekend. Then all of a sudden it's April and it's still snowing. And I wasn't a guy who liked running longer distances anyway; I ran track in high school and my coach used to joke about how I would get out of doing longer distances in practice.

"But my biggest inspiration is Pete," he continued. "I could keep pushing is a testament to him. The other day, I did my first 20-mile run and I got really emotional. It was the longest I'd ever run in my life to that point and I thought about Pete and two friends of mine who passed away at a young age who I'm also running for. That's all the inspiration that I needed (to keep going)."

It's a torch that's been lit first by one of the most prominent members of the Boston media and kept aflame by the Boston College baseball community.

"It's a challenge but look at what we instill in our athletes," Sullivan said. "It's one of the cornerstones of our program. Pete was a specimen and he was always in the gym feeding his competitive edge. Some days I didn't want to run, but I took a page from Pete's book to get in front of it and get it done. If that meant a run before or after a game, or putting on a Pearl Jam song to think of Pete, knowing that I would represent Team Frate Train always made me want it."

So at Mile 21, when the runners come past Boston College, there will be a special connection between at least one runner and the students who will cheer in Chestnut Hill. It's a bond that only those who run for and from BC understand because of the instant connection that forms.

"I'm hoping for a big boost from Boston College," Frates said. "I'll be wearing a special singlet that has our Team Frate Train logo with Pete holding the Beanpot. And BC will be a symbolic mile for me because it's Mile 21, meaning it will be the longest run I've ever had in my life. I hope to feed off that energy to go the last five miles for Pete."

"Running through BC was awesome," Sullivan said. "Pete has an ability to bring people together and there wasn't a mile where someone didn't yell out at my Team Frate Train shirt. There was so much support from people I didn't know, and I saw everyone that was cheering. You need all the support you can get, and I'm excited for Andrew and whoever's next because we will keep running until ALS is a thing of the past."

Related Videos