Golden baseball takes driver’s seat in 4A Je co

BY DENNIS PLEUSS JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

EVERGREEN — It was a playogame atmosphere May 5 on Evergreen High School’s baseball eld. e Class 4A Je co League rivalry between Golden and Evergreen was renewed with a huge conference game. e Demons and Cougars were the only two teams in 4A Je co that hadn’t dropped a league game yet.

When the dust settled, Golden — No. 5 in the CHSAANow.com 4A rankings — captured its 13th straight victory with a 8-4 win over the Cougars.

“I didn’t have to do much to get them ready,” Golden coach Jackie McBroom said of his team playing on the road against Evergreen, who was on an 8-game winning streak coming in. “ ey were ready to play baseball right out of the gate. ey knew what was in the line.” e Demons jumped out early with a 5-run top of the second inning that was started by the bottom half of the line-up. Junior Jacob Dehm had a one-out single and senior Daine Hart followed up with a 2-run home run from his seven-hole spot to give Golden an early 2-0 lead.

Golden (17-4, 7-0 in league) took a 1-game lead over Evergreen (13-5, 6-1) and Green Mountain (14-7, 6-1) in the conference standings with two league games remaining this week.

“It was just a great inning with a bunch of energy,” Hart said of the 5-run fourth inning that included his 2-run home run to start the scoring. “I came up with an approach. I got a good ball and just took it.”

Hart took it over the left eld fence for his rst home run of the season.

“Daine had a huge hit,” McBroom said of the 2-run home run. “I’m proud for him. He is a senior who had been grinding for a long time and ghting for playing time. He

Golden tacked a run on in the third and fth inning to pushed the lead up to 7-0 with the Demons’ ace Laif Palmer cruising on the mound having given up just three hits through fth innings.

However, Evergreen came to life in the bottom of the sixth inning taking advantage of a the rst walk by Palmer, along with two Demon errors. Evergreen senior Augie Webre seventh inning. Hord hit a towering solo home run with two outs in the top of the seventh inning to add an insurance run and grab the momentum back to the Demons.

“ at was just electric,” Palmer said of Hord’s solo home run. “ at got us all red up and got me ready to go out there and K three in row. at was a big moment that we needed.” e next and likely nal start of the regular season for Palmer will come title could be decided in the confer- the rest of league and the rest of the regular season,” Palmer said. “We want to win out and show that there is no one better than us going into playo s. I think we all believe that.” about their journey called “A Mile at a Time: A father and son’s inspiring Alzheimer’s journey of love, adventure and hope.”

Dennis Pleuss is the sports information director for Je co Public Schools. For more Je co coverage, go to CHSAANow.com.

Travis and Mace travel around the country speaking about Alzheimer’s disease, and they will be at the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America’s Alzheimer’s & Caregiving Educational Conference on May 17. e family also will be at the Evergreen Taphouse for a book signing that evening.

“To his credit, (Mace) decided he was not going to be ashamed of Alzheimer’s and not going to hide it,” Travis said. “He’s continued to do that, and honestly it’s turned out that his treatment has been communicating with other Alzheimer’s families.” e line between forgetfulness and an Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis would be when someone suddenly doesn’t know where they are, Reiss said. ey wander o or try to go someplace from the past.

Dr. Allison Reiss with the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America’s Medical, Scienti c and Memory Screening Advisory Board said Alzheimer’s disease is not always obvious, especially at rst.

“We all get more forgetful, and sometimes we get so much clutter in our brains that we may do something wrong or di erent like misplace our keys or forget something on the chore list,” she explained.

Another big one, she added, is not getting words right.

“Not just mispronouncing,” said Reiss, who is an associate professor of medicine at the NYU Long Island School of Medicine, “but when you can’t nd the words or when you forget something basic like your

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10 own phone number. After a point, it becomes clear that it cannot be attributed to a normal situation.”

Before the diagnosis

Mace spent his life as a hard-working trial attorney, forsaking sleep to do it all – spending time with his family while working long hours at his practice. He began competing in adventure racing in the 1980s when the grueling sport was forming and competed in all eight Eco-Challenge races from 1995 to 2002.

Travis, following in his dad’s footsteps, became an accomplished ultra-athlete, traveling around the world to race professionally. Prior to Mace’s diagnosis, the father and son did hundreds of the same races, mostly solo events in which both entered.

“We did lots of the same adventure races in which Dad competed on a team with friends and I raced for the win with a competitive team,” Travis explained.

In 2019, a year after Mace’s diagnosis, the duo traveled to Fiji to race in the revived Eco-Challenge, a 10-day, 417-mile race with 280 competitors who traversed mountains, rivers, swamps and oceans, the rst time the two had competed on the same team. While the team did not nish, Travis considered it a win because endurance racing doesn’t have a category for competitors with Alzheimer’s disease.

The beginning

Mace said leading up to his diagnosis, he noticed he wasn’t talking properly, making his trial-attorney career more di cult.

“Word nding had become more di cult for him,” wife Pam said, “but not to where anyone would notice.”

Mace saw a neurologist, and a brain MRI came back normal, so they thought he was in the clear. But the symptoms kept persisting: things like Mace couldn’t read a map, and he suddenly had di culty pulling a car into a parking space.

But concern about Mace’s health had to wait while Pam received a kidney transplant. Mace wasn’t a match, but he donated one anyway to someone else who needed one. Donors must be in excellent health to donate.

When Mace was diagnosed with

Alzheimer’s disease, the doctor told him to start getting his a airs in order immediately and to take a family trip soon.

“We weren’t surprised by the diagnosis,” Pam said, “but we were still shocked. He is the healthiest person I know. I have had the health issues, so we thought I’d be the rst to go. ( e diagnosis) was reorienting as we think about the future.”

Travis added: “When the diagnosis came, it was not a surprise, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was really tough. For me, initially, it was a mad scramble to try to nd a cure and treatments. Immediately, we have to gure out nances, putting things into a trust, maybe we need to build a house on my parents’ property so we can take care of them. In hindsight, I was trying to control something uncontrollable.”

Since his diagnosis nearly ve years ago, Mace is losing more cognitive abilities: he no longer drives a car, he sometimes has di culty reading and writing, and his balance isn’t what it once was.

In addition to his wife and son, he has strong support from his two daughters, Katelyn Macy Sandoval of Denver and Donavahn Macy of Tampa, Florida, plus ve grandchildren to play with.

Reiss said the degree of stress and sadness for both the person with

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Coping with Alzheimer’s Travis said Mace has had sayings during races and life. In fact, Mace has a tattoo that says “It’s all good training” on his forearm because he believes there’s value in going through something di cult. at’s Mace’s attitude toward Alzheimer’s disease.

e disease’s toll can be seen in the races that father and son have undertaken as time goes by.

ey ran the Leadville 50-mile race in 2021, the Leadville Marathon in 2022, and they are planning to do the Leadville 10K this year.

“I have realized that winning doesn’t matter; I just want to run with my dad,” Travis explained. e family knows that Mace’s health continues to deteriorate, so they are planning for the future while still trying to be present in the here and now.

Mace wants people to know that people with Alzheimer’s disease are like everyone else, and they go on with life, though a little di erently.

WANT TO GO TO THE CONFERENCE?

• The Alzheimer’s Foundation of America is hosting a free Alzheimer’s & Caregiving Educational Conference as part of its 2023 national Educating America Tour. It will be from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Wednesday, May 17, at the University of Denver’s Fritz Knoebel Events Center, 2044 E. Evans Ave., Denver. Travis and Mark Macy are speaking at the conference about Navigating Alzheimer’s a Mile at a Time. To register, visit www.alzfdn.org/tour.

• Mark and Travis Macy will be at the Evergreen Taphouse at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 17, for a book signing.

the Alzheimer’s diagnosis and that person’s loved ones can be overwhelming.

“ e outcome is inevitable,” she said. “ is disease only goes in one direction, and the nal pathway is grim. Living with this person you love and watching the loss of that is just horrendous.”

Plus caregivers, who want to take care of their loved one themselves, face stress and depression because they become xated on caring for the other person, not themselves. She said caregivers must take care of themselves and lean on family

“Just love the person (with Alzheimer’s),” Pam said. “ ey are the same person. As things change, we will have to change. It’s not going to get easier.”

Pam, already patient with an optimistic outlook, said she’s learned that it’s OK to ask for help.

Helping others

Pam said it was important for them to reach out to others on the Alzheimer’s disease journey to share information and to connect for support.

“Why stay home and hide?” she asked.

Travis said connecting with others on the same path has become a new mission, and a big goal of the book is to make a di erence and help people. Secondarily, it gave father and son something to do together.

“We are not Alzheimer’s experts,” Travis said, “but we are sharing our story.”

Mace continues to nd happiness in his life, and Travis attributes that “to my mom being incredibly supportive and energetic.”

“What is important to know,” Mace said, “is you will still be OK even after the diagnosis. I’m still an athlete and as good as I ever was. I’m perfectly happy. I have a great family.”