09/19/2026
Well said. Thank you everyone for your support! We’re excited to see our L4L softball family in two weeks! 💜🥎
Good morning, WGS Families,
It occurred to me this morning that as we prepare for the 6th Annual Love for Lauren Tournament, there is a whole new generation of players and parents who may not know who Lauren is or why this tournament means so much to so many of us on the WGS Board.
Lauren played rec ball for Westminster Girls Softball back when we were still a slow-pitch program. When WGS made the jump to fastpitch, she became part of one of our first travel teams. She played on a special 12U team with a group of girls who grew up together on the softball field. Today, those girls are all either in college or working in our community, continuing to grow, succeed and make a positive impact on the world around them.
I was lucky enough to have my daughter begin her own travel softball adventure on that team, so I got to see Lauren as a player and teammate. I remember her always having a smile on her face in the dugout, being one of the first to run onto the field and one of the loudest cheerleaders for her teammates. To say she was an integral part of that team would be an understatement.
In the early summer of 2019, 11 year old Lauren began experiencing headaches, vision issues and nausea. Despite several different interventions, her symptoms did not improve. That fall, an MRI revealed a grapefruit-sized tumor in the left frontal lobe of her brain.
Lauren was admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in early October, with surgery planned for the following Monday. Unfortunately, she suffered a stroke that Sunday evening, requiring emergency surgery. Doctors were able to remove most, if not all, of the tumor, but the extent of the damage caused by the stroke was unknown.
The decision was made that chemotherapy was not immediately necessary, allowing Lauren to focus on rehabilitation and getting stronger. Unfortunately, complications from the injury to her brain resulted in several additional hospital stays, procedures and surgeries.
As news of what Lauren and her family were going through spread throughout our softball community, it quickly became clear that people wanted to do something to help.
Coach Robbie Green came up with the idea for the first Love for Lauren T-shirt, a vintage collector's item that you can still spot around town from time to time, and then came the idea of hosting a softball tournament to help Lauren's family with the overwhelming expenses they were facing.
That first tournament was MAGIC.
In all my years around youth sports, I had never seen so much love poured into one weekend. Teams from all over came out. Players made signs. People volunteered their time, donated money and took the time to meet Lauren and her family. Everyone rallied around a family that could just as easily have been any one of ours.
That was the weekend I started using the term "softball family."
I realized we weren't just a collection of teams competing against one another. We were a family, and when one of our own needed help, everyone showed up.
In the years since, Coach Robbie and his incredible family have moved on from our program although they still come back every year for the tournament and a new group of dedicated volunteers, led by the amazing Jen Young, has taken over the enormous job of keeping Love for Lauren going and making sure it remains one of the most special weekends of our softball season.
It's a weekend where the softball is fierce, but the vibe is all love.
It's a weekend that reminds us that the game is important, but the people who play it are even more important.And it's a weekend when players, coaches and families who may compete against each other the rest of the year come together as one softball family to support one of their own, a young woman who continues to battle every day and show all of us just how powerful the human spirit can be.
Anyway, that's why the Love for Lauren Tournament is so important to this program, and why I believe it always will be.
We hope you'll take some time to come out to the sports complex on October 3–4. Come watch some great softball, experience what makes this weekend so special, and most importantly, help us continue to support Lauren and her family.
Thank you,
Josh Gold
President
Westminster Girls Softball
