Cancer claimed the life of Todd Schwartz in 2002, but friends and family refuse to let the memory of him die.
On Saturday, many of those friends and family members will gather at the Thurston Middle School field for the fifth Todd J. Schwartz Softball Classic to help raise money for the Jimmy Fund. Twenty-one teams will have a friendly competition in a single-elimination format that unites friends, family and supporters.
"Todd's legacy was to keep people together," his mother, Janet Schwartz, a High Street resident, said yesterday in her kindergarten classroom at the Martha Jones School.
In December 2000 during his senior year at Westwood High, Todd Schwartz was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma cancer, which attacks soft tissues.
Through the rest of his senior year, Schwartz kept the illness relatively quiet.
"He didn't want to be viewed as being sick, or have anyone think differently of him," said Rebecca Schwartz, a longtime friend of Todd's who happens to have the same last name. "Usually he talked it down, if he went to the hospital or anything. He didn't want anyone to worry or be concerned."
Rebecca Schwartz, who described Todd as "sincere, honest, loyal," plans to travel from Washington, D.C., for the softball tournament.
"While he was ill, he was just this great, happy guy. That was how he wanted it," his mother recalled, her voice catching as she spoke of her son.
Schwartz balanced chemotherapy with hanging out with friends, and graduated in 2001.
"He was notorious for being the class clown, without wanting the center stage," Janet Schwartz said.
Her son became a spokesman for the Jimmy Fund and that fall he went off, seemingly healthy, to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst for his freshman year of college.
At the end of the school year his cancer returned. By November 2002 Schwartz was dead, leaving behind his mother, father John Schwartz and sisters Laura and Amy, now 27 and 21.
Friends from Westwood High School began organizing a pasta dinner, now held annually at the Schwartz household the night before Thanksgiving, and started a fund for a scholarship in his honor, awarded each year to a graduating senior.
Friends at Camp Tel Noar in New Hampshire, where Schwartz was a summer counselor, initiated the softball tournament. The first year teams played in New Hampshire, and Janet Schwartz said the tournament drew 200 people. The $20,000 raised at the event paid for a Jimmy Fund road trip for cancer patients to watch the Red Sox play the Orioles at Camden Yards in Baltimore.
After two years in New Hampshire, the tournament moved to Westwood, where it keeps growing with raffles, silent auctions, barbecues and even a children's concert this year. Last year 500 people showed up, and Schwartz said the event brought in more than $45,000. She's hoping to raise $50,000 this year for the Jimmy Fund's annual Family Festival for cancer patients, survivors and their families.
Tickets to the tournament cost $25 per person, or $100 for a family fan package. Players can participate for $75 each. To register or buy tickets visit www.fortodd.org or email rsvp@fortodd.org. Tickets will also be available at the event. Proceeds benefit the Jimmy Fund.
Daily News staff writer Greg Duggan can be reached at 781-433-8355 or by e-mail at gduggan@cnc.com.
