Baseball: How one UL player remembers his best friend

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, May 28, 2015

 

UL third baseman Brenn Conrad delivers the UL hand signal with the green bracelet on his wrist to recognized the death of his close friend Christian Nelson two years ago.(Photo: Courtesy UL sports information)

 

 

HOUSTON – As the University of Louisiana at Lafayette baseball team prepared for the NCAA’s 2013 Baton Rouge Regional, infielder Brenn Conrad got the devastating news.

On a Thursday morning one day before the Regional was about to begin, Conrad’s close friend from high school died as the result of a workplace accident.

Conrad left his team and returned home to mourn the loss and be with the family of Christian Nelson, his buddy from Lafayette High.

Two years later Conrad asked his current Ragin’ Cajun teammates to take the memory of his pal with him for another NCAA Regional, this one in Houston, where on Friday afternoon UL opens against Rice.

They’ve done so in the form of a green wristband, inscribed with the words "Christian’s Legacy" and an icon representing music-loving Nelson’s favorite instrument, a guitar.

Before they left Lafayette to make the trek west across Interstate 10, Cajun players posed for a photo in their locker room — all proudly wearing the wristband.

"Everybody knows that my best friend passed away … and, you know, everybody had been so generous to me, and so caring," Conrad said after the Cajuns practiced Thursday at the University of Houston’s Cougar Field here.

"Having them wear that wristband for me means the world to me," he added. "And they all know why they have the wristbands – that my friend gave his heart to somebody else and saved his life."

Christian’s Legacy, run through the Community Foundation of Acadiana, promotes organ donation awareness and late last year granted $2,500 to the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency.

Nelson’s organ, tissue and cornea donations saved four lives and restored sight for two people.

His parents – Hans and Jennifer Nelson, best known as local 102.1 FM radio personalities Fast and Jenn – created the fund, according to its website, "to create awareness of the importance of organ donation and to provide support to donor families."

(More information can be found online at cfacadiana.org/fund_highlights/Donor-Advised-Funds/Christians-Legacy and wristbands can be purchased for $3 each by emailing orders to jenn_nelson1@yahoo.com).

Hans Nelson called Conrad – the younger brother of Jace Conrad, an ex-Cajuns second baseman now playing in the Tampa Bay Rays minor-league system – a few days ago and asked if he’d hand out the wristbands.

"I said of course,’ and I talked to Coach (Tony Robichaux) about it, and he said ‘of course,’ " Conrad said.

Conrad — a frequent starter lately at third base for the Cajuns, who beat South Alabama in last Sunday’s Sun Belt Conference Tournament title game — said Hans, also UL’s football and men’s basketball public-address announcer, and Jenn Nelson plan to be in Houston to watch the Regional.

"It really does mean a lot to me," he said, "that they’re gonna be here. … We’re gonna have a bunch of fans in Houston, so I think it’s gonna be really special."

NCAA HOUSTON REGIONAL

WHERE: Cougar Field, Houston.

REGIONAL SEEDS: 1. Houston; 2. Rice; 3. UL; 4. Houston Baptist.

FIRST UL GAME: UL vs. Rice at 2:30 p.m. Friday; Houston vs. Houston Baptist at 7 p.m. Friday

TV: None.

RADIO: KPEL 96.5 FM.

ONLINE: ESPN3.