Medfield Press: 

Eric Perkins Memorial Tournament returns Saturday

By Rob Borkowski/Staff writer

Tue Nov 25, 2008, 06:32 PM EST

Medfield -

The fourth annual Eric Perkins Memorial Football Tournament kicks off this Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Medfield High varsity turf field, with a goal of $3,000 and a little help from the Medfield Fire and Police Departments.

Proceeds from registering teams go to the Eric Michael Perkins Memorial Scholarship, and the precedent for meeting the fundraising goal seems well-established. The first year, the tournament raised $4,000 and the next year about $3,000 was raised, said Eric Ormberg, organizer and MHS football coach.

Last year, the tournament raised $5,000, said Joseph Perkins, Eric’s father. Last year the Fire Department donated items for a silent auction, and they’ll be doing that again, this time with donations from the Police Department, too.

“They’re probably our biggest contributors,” along with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), Joseph said.

The fund supports a $1,000 scholarship, awarded each year to a graduating senior on the football team. The candidate is selected by the varsity coaching staff. Last year’s recipient was Michael Aldinger,

“They pick somebody that exemplifies Eric’s dedication to being a team player,” Joseph said.

Four years ago, on the eve of Thanksgiving, the Perkins family lost Eric Perkins to a tragic drunk driving accident while the 2004 MHS graduate was home from college, three weeks before his 19th birthday.

The driver, Eric’s friend Robert Leist, who was 19 at the time, was under the influence of alcohol. Leist faced four counts of motor vehicle homicide in Dedham Superior Court, as well as a speeding charge after a state police accident reconstruction showed he was traveling more than 80 miles per hour during the crash. Toxicology reports also showed he had been smoking marijuana and had a blood alcohol percentage of .108 the night of the fatal accident.

Leist was sentenced to two and a half years in the Dedham House of Corrections in 2006. He served one year, with the balance of his term under probation, Joseph said.

Sheila Gill and Brad Garnett, Eric's friends, created the tournament to honor the memory of Eric, who had played football for four years for MHS. Gill approached Carol and Joe Perkins, Eric's parents, and asked them if she could organize the tournament in his name. They agreed, and the tournament's debut was a success.

“It’s been very, very successful. I’m very, very pleased with the generosity,” Joseph said.

The tournament has room for 20 teams, and so far there are 17 teams signed on. Each team costs $100 to sign up, $20 per person, he said.

This year, contributors to the fund and participants in the tournament will receive “Forever40” stickers for their cars or windows to show their support, and help keep Eric’s memory alive. Forty was Eric’s number on the Medfield High football team.

 Also in that vein, the family has launched a Web site: www.forever40.org, where they’ve asked friends to share their memories of Eric.

If you would like to contribute a donation or volunteer, please contact Erik Ormberg at 508-359-2482 or eormberg@medfield.mec.edu All are welcome to attend the games and cheer on a team. The event begins at 10 a.m. at Medfield High School, 88R South St.

Hometown Weekly:

Celebrating unity

MATT PERKINS

26.NOV.08

If you've kept up with your fair share of Christmas music during the last decade, you've probably come across a few tunes by the Trans Siberian Orchestra.

About four years ago, the band released it’s third Christmas album, entitled ‘The Lost Christmas Eve’.

There was a story within the booklet inside the album, and it had something to do with an angel following a man who many years ago lost his wife and was separated from his son. The pain he was able to ignore physically and emotionally, but the wound cut his soul so deep that he’d been bleeding from the pain ever since. The blood trickled behind him as he walked along day to day, but no one aside from the angel could see the “soul blood”.

Now, I’m not going to go so far as to compare myself to the man in this story, or anyone else who might endure grief at one point or another during his or her life. That’s not right, and that’s not why I’m writing this piece.

No. I’m writing this for a few reasons. The first and foremost is because the blessed folks over at the Hometown Weekly were kind enough to let me say a few words during this warming, and yet difficult, time of year. It’s the second time I’ve been offered the chance to do this.

Secondly, my family and myself were cut rather deep about four years ago when my brother Eric was killed. The wound isn’t one that’ll probably ever heal, and even if it does, it’ll leave one hell of a scar that can’t be ignored . . . even if I want to ignore it (which I undoubtedly will).

What’s more, on Saturday this town will pull together again for a tournament a few of my brother’s friends generated a few years back. God bless them for it. I’ve seen the town pull together for events like this before and it’s always encouraging to see.

It is within my undying appreciation that everyone who has participated in the event since its inception continues to do so, and with unquestioning commitment. I thank you so much for this. It’s not something I ever expected.

The tournament aside, I’d like to take a second to touch upon Thanksgiving. I think there’s one thing we can agree on and be thankful for today. And that’s unity. That’s being here together. Now I don’t really care if that sounds cliché or not. Most likely it does, but regardless, it’s true.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last four years, it’s that there is virtually nothing in this life more important than love and family. That, and as Stephen King said during his speech at the University of Maine's commencement in 2005, “Don't let the sun go down without saying thank you to someone, and without admitting to yourself that absolutely no one gets this far alone.”

And here we are again, four years later, to prove that. We’ll prove it Thanksgiving Day in our homes to celebrate that for which we are most thankful. And we’ll prove it again on Saturday when we rendezvous at the high school.

I hope, though, that it’s something we can learn to prove beyond just this time of year, and I have a pretty good feeling we can.

As I began writing this piece, I sat at my desk with headphones on and listened to “Faith Noel,” the first track off ‘The Lost Christmas Eve’. It’s a song I first heard only days after Eric died. I bought the album at Newbury Comics in Framingham in an attempt to get my mind off all of the chaos that was swirling around my head at unprecedented speeds and sounds.

Now, whenever I hear that song, I’m instantly taken back to four years ago. I’m taken back to a seat in my living room, where I sat surrounded by mourning but ever-so-comforting friends and family; by a “safety net,” as a family friend put it at the time. I’m taken back to a time in which my chest felt as though it had been pierced with a large tree branch. It felt so tough that I didn’t think it would stop. And it never will.

And I think I’m OK with that.

Let me be clear on something: I’m nowhere near the vicinity of being able to accept my brother’s death. It’s just in no realm of possibility for me at the moment. But I do know that it will be.

And this time of year I’m reminded of that possibility. Which I find pretty ironic, considering it was the time of year in which my best friend in life left without a whisper.

It’s a warming thought to know that each year I can look forward to laughing at least once inside the home of a friend, a family member; to know that two days after the feast of all yearly feasts this town will come together in unity to celebrate not only the memory of my brother, but to celebrate a cause, to celebrate awareness, and most importantly, to celebrate unity. Yeah -- I think I’m on the right track to at least closing the wound a little more.

But I know that it would not be a possibility if it weren’t for the safety net.

I can go on and on and on trying to explain what a drunken roller-coaster ride grief really is. But I have to deal with that in my own time, and I don’t want to reflect on that now.

Because if anything, while this time of year is drenched in bittersweet emotion, it continues to be my favorite time of year. And if anything, it’s because I know we’re all going to pull together for each other.

This year’s flag football tournament to benefit the Eric Perkins Memorial Scholarship will be held at the Medfield High School Varsity Football Field on Saturday, November 29th at 10:00am. To make a donation to the scholarship, or for more information on the tournament, visit www.forever40.org.