Ride For Life: Former college athlete shares his battle with ALS

APPLETON ? Joel Ungrodt returned to Lawrence University on Saturday to bask in athletic glory once again, even as the body that allowed him to earn those honors is cruelly betraying him.

Ungrodt, a 1964 LU graduate, was back on campus for the weekend?s festivities that inducted him and five other former Vikings athletes into the school?s athletic hall of fame. He also brought another message to his old campus, as he explained his current battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig?s Disease .

?It?s a very frustrating disease because there?s no known cause or sure,? he said. ?The way it attacks a person is just to slowly take away their strength a little bit at a time, typically two or five years.?

ALS attacks nerve cells and pathways in the brain and spinal cord. As those cells die, voluntary muscle control and movement disappears, even as a person?s mind remains alert. According to the ALS Association, about 5,600 people are diagnosed with the disease each year.

?The life expectancy is so short that you don?t have the large numbers of patients,? said Mike Buckley, executive director of ALS Association?s southeast Wisconsin chapter. ?That makes it difficult for us to have the kind of visibility that other diseases might have.?

Ungrodt, who is the No. 4 all-time scorer in LU men?s basketball history with 1,260 points, learned he had the disease in July 2001. ?I don?t recall ever having a sick day before that,? he said.

Although Ungrodt has increasing difficulty using his arms, he continues to work as much as possible as the executive director of Family Works, a Madison-based treatment foster care agency.

He spoke at Lawrence in cooperation with the university?s Phi Delta Theta fraternity, to which Ungrodt belonged during his college years and which is now raising funds for ALS research.

Ungrodt was inducted into the hall of fame along with Steve Neuman (?76, football/track/ wrestling), Bob Eddy (?79, football/track), Chris Lindfelt (?88, football), Gina Seegers Szablewski (?92, women?s basketball) and the late Paul Elsberry (?51, cross country).