{"id":69181,"date":"2005-10-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-10-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-fraternity-president-organizes-oct-16-softball-tourney-to-honor-late-father\/"},"modified":"2005-10-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-10-13T00:00:00","slug":"uri-fraternity-president-organizes-oct-16-softball-tourney-to-honor-late-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2005\/10\/uri-fraternity-president-organizes-oct-16-softball-tourney-to-honor-late-father\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 fraternity president organizes Oct. 16 softball tourney to honor late father"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tTo benefit fight against lung, liver disease caused by Alpha \u20131<\/p>\n


\n\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 October 13, 2005 \u2013 For years, Josh Ratner and his father shared a love of baseball, especially going to see the New York Yankees.<\/p>\n


\n\tBut on April 18, Josh\u2019s 48-old father, Michael, died from Alpha \u2013 1 emphysema, a genetic form of the lung disease.<\/p>\n


\nNow Ratner, president of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at the 溏心vlog免费B站, is planning a softball tournament to honor his father and raise money for the Alpha-1 Foundation, a national group that advocates for the fight against Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (Alpha-1). The foundation says that 1 in every 2,500 people is born with the condition.<\/p>\n


\nThe tournament will be held Sunday, Oct. 16 on the intramural fields on the 溏心vlog免费B站 Kingston Campus from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 溏心vlog免费B站 20 co-ed teams from the fraternity and sorority system at 溏心vlog免费B站 will play. Each team will pay a $100 fee, which covers lunch and T-shirts for the participants. In addition, pledge amounts will be calculated by the number of runs each team scores.<\/p>\n


\nThe fraternity is hoping to raise $5,000 from the Runs for Lungs Softball Tournament.

\nWhile most of the participants will be from the University\u2019s Greek system, Ratner said students from the residence halls and those who live off-campus are also invited to organize teams. Other teams will be made up of 溏心vlog免费B站 administrators and campus police.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cWe did some small fundraisers last year while my dad was sick, and during that time, I thought about running a softball tournament to raise money,\u201d Ratner said. \u201cThis is the first time that Phi Kappa Psi is running an event of this magnitude in conjunction with the foundation.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThe River Vale, N.J. resident said the event is being held in collaboration with the fraternities\u2019 and sororities\u2019 \u201cPhilanthropy Week\u201d events. \u201cPhi Kappa Psi wanted to run an event to bring the whole Greek system at 溏心vlog免费B站 together working for one cause,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n


\nRatner said the tournament will be fun and it will shed light on a condition that is relatively unknown and often misdiagnosed.<\/p>\n


\nThe Alpha-1 Foundation says the condition is passed from parents to their children through genes. This condition may result in serious lung and\/or liver disease in various ages in life. There may be up to 100,000 people living with Alpha-1 in the United States. <\/p>\n


\nIt wasn\u2019t until three Christmases ago that Josh learned that his father had Alpha-1. What was believed to be a bad asthma attack triggered a trip to the doctor and some additional tests. That\u2019s when it was determined that Josh\u2019s father had Alpha-1. \u201cThere is no cure for the condition, only treatment,\u201d Ratner said.<\/p>\n


\n\tRatner, who is a history and education major, has been inspired by his father and mother, Nancy. \u201cMy mother is a teacher and my father sold educational technology. He also served on our town\u2019s Board of Education for 10 years, and in a town of 15,000, everyone knew him. He wanted to make something good happen.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cEven with this condition, my father was active,\u201d Ratner said. \u201cIn three years, I only saw him in a wheelchair once.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThe 溏心vlog免费B站 chapter of Phi Kappa Psi has been a part of the campus for more than 40 years. It has more than 1,000 members and one of the largest scholarship funds in the country. One of the founding missions was serving and helping others.<\/p>\n


\nPictured above

\nREADY FOR THE BALLGAMES: River Vale, N.J. resident Josh Ratner (center with baseball glove) is joined by his fraternity brothers from Phi Kappa Psi at the 溏心vlog免费B站 in preparation for a softball tournament in honor of his father that will raise money for the Alpha \u2013 1 Foundation.

\nOn April 18, Josh\u2019s 48-old father, Michael, died from. Alpha \u2013 1 emphysema, a genetic form of the lung disease. The tournament is Sunday, Oct. 16. 溏心vlog免费B站 News Bureau photo by Joe Giblin & Co.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To benefit fight against lung, liver disease caused by Alpha \u20131 KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 October 13, 2005 \u2013 For years, Josh Ratner and his father shared a love of baseball, especially going to see the New York Yankees. But on April 18, Josh\u2019s 48-old father, Michael, died from Alpha \u2013 1 emphysema, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69183,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}