On a chilly Friday morning an entire community rose with the sun in order to honor one of their favorite sons.
While the pain of loss never completely goes away, there was something that those closest to Sean D. Ryan did to help close the wound. Ryan’s friends created an event in which they could honor his loss and give back to the community who loved him so much.
The second annual Sean Ryan Memorial Flag Football Tournament was the brainchild of Ryan’s fellow peers. Teams playing flag football was required a five dollar down payment per person and at least 60 dollars to enter a team. Proceeds from the event were dedicated to a scholarship in Ryan’s name. A Hingham High School graduate receives college aid that the Ryan family never got to use.
If you have never met Ryan it is not because he came up to Pace for preview weekend once and decided to go somewhere else. It is because he died about a week after he finished high school.
Two years ago, Ryan’s life came to a tragic end as he was victimized by a car accident just nine days after receiving his high school diploma. Family, friends, and fellow classmates all cried when they were reminded of their mortality in the worst possible way.
After the body was buried and the tears finally stopped flowing, one student decided to do something for the community in memory of his friend. The Sean Ryan Memorial Flag Football Tournament was born.
The tournament was partially fathered by a Villanova sophomore by the name of Daniel Smoot. Smoot was a close friend of Ryan during high school and their friendship dates back to their times in the Barker Basketball league as kids. And like his old friend used to do, Smoot took an idea for the tournament and ran with it.
“Matt Cooley’s godfather is the head of the flag football league and he suggested that we set up a tournament to honor Sean,” Smoot said. “At first it was an idea that we just tossed around, but once we decided to act on it things just kind of fell into place.”
For Smoot, getting the word out on the tournament was easier than converting on a third and short yardage situation. Smoot and his friends promoted the event through Facebook and other social media outlets to get people to show up.
“This tournament is the biggest thing that we do to raise money for the scholarship,” Smoot said. “Thanks to social media and mostly word of mouth, we get a huge turnout and people contribute to the scholarship fund.”
The town of Hingham certainly contributed. Smoot said that the town raised 60 thousand dollars in t-shirt sales over the past year. Boxes of the white t-shirts were shipped to the tournament and families throughout the day were lining up to by them.
To this day, students in the Hingham community have not forgotten the day in which their friend died. Worcester Polytechnic Institute junior Dan Robertson admits that the tragedy brought an entire community together.
“I was thrilled to see so many old friends with their families gathered to honor Sean,” Robertson said. “Today is such a good day to support a local student whose life was cut tragically short.”
Another young athlete of Massachusetts was life was cut tragically short two years ago.
The Pace community remembers the death of Danroy Henry Jr. on October 17, 2010. The students remember the candle light vigils on the football field, the social media outcry over the circumstances of DJ’s death, and the memorial clock erected outside of Goldstein Fitness Center in his memory.
The Sean Ryan Memorial Flag Football tournament raises money for student scholarships like the DJ Dream Fund. Although the DJ Dream Fund has become a fairly well known non-profit organization, the flag football tournament has not evolved to that status. Even though the tournament raised around four thousand dollars last year, the DJ Dream Fund has been able to reach more students in the greater Boston area.
As recently as Oct. 4, the djdreamfund.org reported a partnership with SCORE Boston. The site also reported that their combined financial efforts helped six students obtain the equipment and the means to play hockey. In contrast, the funds from the flag football tournament have only been able to help one student a year get financial help. Still, charity is not competition, especially at Hingham High School.
Even though the flag football tournament is still wicked local, that is just fine with Smoot.
“I don’t need to see the whole town dedicating something to him,” Smoot said. “It is just a nice reminder for everyone to come together and remember Sean once a year.”
Shirts were sold, hot dogs were consumed, and plenty of people played flag football from 8 a.m. until they couldn’t see the ball anymore. When the games finally stopped it turned out that all of the hot dogs were eaten, the t-shirts were sold, and for one day a community came together to honor Ryan’s memory.