East Lyme

It's a growing fraternity, the people of ALS. You can't help it. It tugs at your soul. It's a feeling, often not quantifiable. You just know.

You see people die. Helplessly. And your emotions become connections that run like currents to other families affected by it, people you don't even know.

And so when nights like Thursday happen, you smile. You believe. You believe in people all over again. You believe the cure is coming.

This was Thursday on the newly turfed lawn of East Lyme High: four soccer programs, blood rivals, together playing for a cure. It was the Ninth Annual ALS Cup, Waterford vs. East Lyme, programs of both genders. They sold tickets in their schools to raise money, made T-shirts, some even did the Ice Bucket Challenge. All to call attention to the disease that attacks everything but the mind.

"The best part about this was the way kids got involved," New London Judge of Probate Matt Greene was saying. "Not only did they raise money but they raised awareness. And the kids were part of it. They understand what they're playing for."

Now they understand even more. They could have looked at the tears of Wally Christensen, the longtime East Lyme coach, recalling the story of Bill Bonavita, his old coach, future assistant coach and forever friend, who lost his wife and three in-laws to ALS.

They could have heard Greene's story, how he lost his mother and aunt to ALS. How a day doesn't go by when he wonders whether every twinge he feels, even the most fleeting, innocuous pang, isn't a harbinger that ALS is coming for him, too.

Christensen: "We do this for Bill," he said, eyes welling and voice teetering.

Greene: "You have to live, but every time you have a twitch you start to think. I know you can come down with cancer or have heart attack, too. But you just hope. It's been determined when my mother came down with ALS that it wasn't familial, but environmental. That's one of the things I try to go with. But I think about it every day."

Greene and Bonavita ought to serve as cautionary tales for the Catholic Church, which recently denounced the Ice Bucket Challenge because finding the cure for ALS "conflicts with church teachings by funding embryonic stem-cell research."

What a heartwarming political position from the self-proclaimed conscience of the world. If you haven't noticed, Matt Greene's family, Bill Bonavita's family and all the other families are real people. Good, honest, decent people faced with a living hell. And their plights, their futures and the futures of everyone else afflicted by ALS ought not to be imperiled by heartless, insensitive posturing.

So fight on. Fight on with ideas like the ALS Cup, when the hope and wonder of the future feels so real.

ALS Research has become front page news in recent weeks. The Ice Bucket Challenge, the fun, inclusive, social media spectacle, has raised more than $100 million. The tentacles reach into our communities, too, all the way to East Lyme and Waterford, with the kids selling raffle tickets and handing out T-shirts and fighting the fight for those who can't.

This is part of the educational process that can't be understated. Part of growing up is to realize there's a world outside of your iPhone.

"It's kind of gotten the school going," East Lyme senior Quintin Parsons said. "Every fall sports team is doing some kind of a fundraiser for something. It's brought the school together. You see people who are suffering and you feel like this is really going to help them."

Greene said the proceeds raised during the ALS Cup will be going to local families. It's not a steep sum. Maybe that's what makes it better. A little of this and some of that, what people can afford, what kids donate, $500 from Chelsea Groton Bank, community in its rawest, best form.

"It's a small amount, but it's a large amount," Greene said. "You hand someone a check and see the smile on their face. It really makes you feel like you're doing something for a good reason."

It's a growing fraternity, the people of ALS. You can't help it. It tugs at your soul. It's a feeling, often not quantifiable. You just know.

And the cure is coming.

"I won't say it goes silent, but ALS doesn't have the same publicity as other diseases. This one can be cruel," Greene said. "What (former Boston College baseball player) Pete Frates and his family did (create the Ice Bucket Challenge) to get the message out there … I saw on TV the other night that they've made some progress in the research. It brings tears to your eyes. Hopefully they're getting closer."

One ice bucket, one donation and one T-shirt at a time.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.

Twitter: @BCgenius