Last Saturday, hundreds of donors gathered in the club level at Autzen Stadium, eating hot dogs and popcorn and drinking beer. But they hadn’t shown up a week early for Oregon’s annual spring football game. Instead, nearly 1,000 friends and family paid tribute to former Oregon baseball coach Mel Krause, who was diagnosed with terminal leukemia in January.
Krause, 80, who played for Oregon from 1948-51 and then coached the team from 1971 to 1981, was told that he had two to six months to live after the chemotherapy wasn’t working.
It was his idea then, to have a celebration of his life rather than have a funeral service in his honor.
“There’s no crying in baseball,” Krause said. “This has been a fun afternoon, a fun day, not a sad day.”
While several former teammates and players under Krause shared their favorite memories of the man, Oregon’s baseball coach George Horton was among those who spoke. Horton lamented that he hasn’t had the opportunity to know Krause as well as he’d liked to but since being named as the latest coach, the two have been in constant touch.
But he learned plenty about Krause’s coaching style after hearing all of his former players roast him.
“I’m going to wait until I pass to have my players and coaches shoot bullets at me,” Horton said.
Krause was happy to pass the coaching torch to Horton, telling the audience to realize how lucky it is to have Horton revive the program.
“I love the style of baseball he plays and I love the fire in his belly,” Krause said.
Krause hopes that he can continue to battle the leukemia so he can see Oregon’s first game, which drew a standing applause.
Should Krause not be in the stands during that first game, however, Horton promised that he wouldn’t be forgotten.
Oregon athletic director Pat Kilkenny, who wasn’t in attendance for the event, gives Krause much of the credit for the revived baseball program, though Krause deflected the honor back to Kilkenny.
“We know that his legacy will live forever through our reinstated baseball program,” Kilkenny said in a media release. “The young men who will wear the Oregon uniform for years to come will all know they had that opportunity thanks in large measure to Mel Krause.”
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Celebration brings together past and present
Daily Emerald
April 21, 2008
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