Reaction arrived swiftly on Monday after the death of the Massachusetts man who was known as the face of the Ice Bucket Challenge to benefit ALS research.
Thirty-four-year-old Pete Frates, of Beverly, died after a long battle with Lou Gehrig's disease, according to a statement from his family.
Frates, a former Boston College baseball star, helped start the Ice Bucket Challenge in 2014, two years after his diagnosis with the disease. The Ice Bucket Challenge went viral and raised tens of millions of dollars for research.
He was remembered by people in the world of Boston sports and politics as heroic, inspirational and a person who changed the world for the better.
Congressman Seth Moulton, D-Mass., released this statement: “Pete Frates was a fighter and a patriot who challenged America to confront ALS. Rather than retreating from the national spotlight to manage his illness, he rallied the country around funding medical research through the Ice Bucket Challenge. He will be long remembered for his humor, his strength, and his courage. What a hero he was to me and so many others.”
