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Trying to honor a man who gave his life for his country by placing a monument at the field that bears the fallen Marine's name is the least Dave McCool says he and his fellow Young Tiger Football coaches can do.
McCool, who along with Mark Stamper and Allan Ross founded the Young Tiger Football program, is seeking donations for field expenses and a monument to be placed at Fribley Field.
The field, at Richardson-DuBois Park, Warsaw, will be home to the Young Tiger Football program and is named for 1996 Warsaw Community High School graduate David Fribley.
Fribley, 26, was one of nine Marines killed March 23 in a rocket-propelled grenade attack near An Nasiriyah when Iraqi troops faked a surrender.
Fribley was the first Hoosier casualty in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
"What we're trying to do is honor David," McCool said in a phone conversation Thursday. "He made the biggest sacrifice for his country, this is the least we could do. We had the field and we weren't sure what we were gonna do, and then Carl Sowers came up with the idea of naming it Fribley Field."
Fribley played three years of varsity football at WCHS and was a four-year member of the track team, ending his career with a ninth-place finish at the state finals in the shot put.
An account has been set up at Mutual Federal Savings Bank, Warsaw, for those who would like make a donation.
The program estimates field expenses and cost of the monument at $20,500.
McCool said Fribley's parents, Garry and Linda Fribley, have seen the drawing of the monument and have approved it.
According to McCool, Garry and Linda Fribley attended last year's Young Tiger Football awards program and helped present the first annual David Fribley Award was handed out.
McCool said there is no deadline for donations, and he'd like to see things at the field moving along "by the end of June or the first of July."
