Christopher Wuensch Arizona Daily Wildcat

This one's for you, Dale. That was the sentiment Rec-N-Crew took with them on their road to this year's intramural softball championship game.

The names may have changed over the years with the faces, but the bond has always been the same: Play ball, have fun, leave it all on the field. After shutting down its last opponent by a score of 28-11 to claim the Cactus League title, a jubilant Rec-N-Crew squad attributed the win to the founding father of the Student Recreation Center's intramural squad, Dale Patterson.

The popular weight room staffer wasn't able to join the celebration with his friends, colleagues and fellow players because Dale Patterson passed away five months ago, at the age of 25.

To say the Rec-n-Crew's journey to the league championship was storybook would be an overstatement. In fact, the Rec Center-based team cruised to the title game mostly by crushing its opponents and enforcing the mercy rule.

Of course, that was merely the beginning of the expedition for the Rec-N-Crew, whose Cactus League title advanced the team into the Elite-8 Championship Bracket of the All-Campus Championship.

But the heart of this story is not softball or the Rec-N-Crew. Patterson, the man who made it all possible several years ago, was noticeably absent from the celebration.

In the end, it was his heart, his strongest asset, that failed him, leaving his friends and family to ask how something so terrible could have happened to such a great person. But it's not important how or why he died. What we do know is this: Patterson lived life as clean as a whistle, fitter than a fiddle and no one could ever ask for a better friend.

There was no mistaking Patterson on the field. Sticking out amongst the sea of navy-blue shirts on his teammates was the nimble outfielder and his Superman T-shirt, the one he wore religiously to every game. Patrolling centerfield and any other field he could get into, Patterson could seemingly fly under any ball before it could hit the ground.

His nickname probably should have been "Crazy Legs," for the way he ran the bases. Patterson could take an infield single and turn it into a triple before an opposing team could utter the phrase, "Why isn't he stopping at first?"

"He was the kind of guy who always stretched singles into doubles," Rec-N-Crew pitcher Omar Moreno said of his former teammate. "The ball would still be in the infield and he'd be going for second.

"And he always made it."

Rare as it was, Patterson did find time to stop running. Before graduating, Patterson was a staple in the Rec Center, where he happily worked as the weight room program assistant.

"You'd walk into the weight room at 5:45 in the morning and have to ask him, 'What are you smiling at?'" said former Rec-N-Crew second baseman Stacy Mitchell of her longtime friend.

While working at the Rec Center, Patterson met, fell in love with and married his wife, Stacy LaVoie. This spring would have marked their second wedding anniversary.

"Dale just had something about him that made you want to smile," Mitchell recalled.

Patterson was the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back even if you didn't need it.

A former high school track star in Phoenix, Patterson had planned to follow in the footsteps of his father as an officer in the U.S. Army. While at boot camp at Fort Sill in Lawton, Okla., Patterson put his wheels to the test when he became the only member of his class to pass the Army's physical training test before camp even started.

Patterson will be forever recognized by the Rec Center as a pillar of athleticism and dedication. Starting this semester, the center will reward the most outstanding student employee with the annual Dale Patterson Memorial Award.

The student who best embodies Patterson's enthusiasm and regard for the Rec Center will be honored with his or her name on a plaque displayed in the facility, and will receive a lifetime membership to the Rec Center.

"We want to keep the award within the students and those who knew what kind of person Dale was," said Department of Campus Recreation director Juliette Moore of the honor, which will be voted on by the student employees. Moore said that she hopes the center will be able to generate enough money to be able to offer an annual scholarship to the winner as well.

Funding efforts will begin on the first Sunday in May, when the members of Rec-N-Crew will travel to Tempe to take on a Mitchell-led squad from ASU in an afternoon scrimmage. Moore has pledged that the Rec Center will match any money generated from the game.

A matchup against the Arizona State Rec Center may be just what the Rec-N-Crew needs.

One disastrous eight-run fourth inning was all Pi Kappa G-Phi needed to cut short Rec-N-Crew's dream of winning the All-Campus Championship. Judging by his friends' depiction of him, Patterson would have probably fought the season-ending loss with a smile.

Life can make all the sense in the world sometimes, and at others, make no sense at all. In a fairytale world, Rec-N-Crew would have won the campus title. But if anyone knows that life isn't all roses and sunshine, it's the Rec-N-Crew, a team without its Superman.

Christopher Wuensch is a senior majoring in journalism. He can be reached at sports@wildcat.arizona.edu.