UNION CITY – The 10th Annual Dylan Williams Rec All-Start Tournament welcomed 23 teams to the weekend tournament held at Union City’s Dylan Williams Memorial Ball Park sponsored by the Dylan Williams Forever an All-Start Foundation.
The Foundation (501c3) was established to help raise awareness towards CPR training and the placement of life-saving AEDs at youth sport fields.
“It’s the tenth year and it’s going strong,” said Georgiana Williams, the mother of Dylan. “I’m glad that everybody is coming out and continuing to support Dylan’s memory and that we can continue to donate AEDs in his memory.”
The three winning baseball teams receive an automated external defibrillator (AED) from the Dylan Williams Forever and All-Star Foundation valued at $2,500 each.
The Foundation had donated nearly 200 AEDs to date and according to the American Heart Association, if an AED is available a patient has a 90 percent chance at survival if used within the first minute of a cardiac arrest. Survival rate decreases by up to 10 percent each minute after that.
Teams participating in the 2023 annual tournament came from Ansonia, Coldwater, Eaton, Ft. Recovery, Greenville, Monroe Central, Jay County, Winchester and Union City.
“We had some new teams this year,” said Erick. “Eaton, Ohio brought three teams which was nice to see, Coldwater brought some teams back this year, they hadn’t been here. Union City didn’t have a 12U All-Star team all year and some of the guys got together and put a team together just to be here for the tournament.”
Greenville’s youth baseball program is over for the season and originally entered an 8U team for the tournament.
Greenville has always been here but they originally only entered an 8U team,” said Erick. “They decided they couldn’t miss the tournament so we have a team from Greenville in each age group. They are a great group of people. We had one year where we were rained out and Greenville said bring it there so we held the tournament at Greenville. Fantastic group of people.”
“Our volunteers spend as much time here during the tournament, working the concession, working the grill, cleaning bathrooms, helping me park, getting the diamonds ready,” Erick stated. “We really appreciate their support.”
Lifelong friend, Matt Oswalt served as tournament director for the second consecutive season.
“All through elementary school, middle school, high school we’ve been real close friends,” said Erick. “Matt stepped up last year and took over running the show during the day and volunteered to do it again this year. We really appreciate Matt help as tournament director.”
The Dylan Williams Forever an All Star Foundation received ownership of the Union City, IN ball diamonds approximately six years ago.
“The Foundation took over ownership which we always say Dylan owns it,” Erick noted. “We run our youth program for the town, Indiana and Ohio and run anywhere from 250-300 kids every year through the program. The Dylan’s tournament is our big event, our biggest fundraiser.”
The AEDs given away over the years are now in four states including Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina and have made an impact.
“Just this week we had a picture sent to us and it was one of the storage cases and the door was open and the message was, “prayers appreciated, Dylan’s AED’s being used right now”, Erick said. “It was up in Adams County, up towards Fort Wayne at a 4H fairgrounds. It was an older gentleman, a grandpa. They did use the AED on him but unfortunately he didn’t make it but we just had one used this week. It was available – it was there.”
“Saturday the whole park was packed, picnic tables were full and all the little kids running around is why we do it,” Erick concluded.
