By Zack Steele, For the Tribune
TRUSSVILLE – At 5:31 p.m., on Tuesday, June 6th, a call went out to Trussville Fire and Rescue to the Trussville Country Club. When paramedics arrived they found an injured teen unresponsive, struck by a fallen oak tree at the Trussville Country Club golf course.
A table with pictures, a prayer box and a Bible at a prayer vigil for Grayson Pope.
Photo by: Eve Toledo Santiago
Grayson Pope, a rising junior and standout baseball player at Hewitt Trussville High School, was transported to UAB Hospital with serious injuries.
Pope was pulled from the wreckage of the golf cart by four of his teammates from the Hewitt baseball team. Those teammates stabilized Gray and never left his side until help arrived, then held vigil at the hospital into the early morning hours of the next day.
As word spread, the other members from the Hewitt baseball team made their way to UAB Hospital.
Around 10 p.m. Tuesday night, Trussville’s First Baptist Church opened its doors to anyone wanting to come in and pray for Grayson. Around 150 people, mostly students from Hewitt Trussville High School, made their way to the church to pray for their friend, whom they had cheered for only a few months earlier.
To say Pope is a standout at Hewitt Trussville is an understatement. He committed to play baseball at the University of Tennessee, as a sophomore.
“He is a special baseball player and a special kid,”said Hewitt Coach Jeff Mauldin. “His locker is the first one I see when I walk in. And there’s Gray, with a smile on his face. He brightens everyone’s day, the way he loves baseball, the way he loves life. People are drawn to him, and I think that’s a testament to his parents.”
Pope is a product of a travel organization that Mauldin helped found not long after being hired at Hewitt Trussville. Pope grew up playing in the Husky Baseball Club from a young age. So did many, if not all of his teammates, at one point or another. That includes those who helped rescue him from the accident.
By 2023, hundreds of Trussville’s Youth have played for the Husky Baseball Club. Some move on to other sports, some continue to play into high school and college. Friendships that are forged there last a lifetime. For both players and parents alike.
“The 2024 and 2025 classes have always been a special group,” says Chad Durden, who coached Grayson, and many of his teammates who now play at Hewitt, at a young age. “When you are heavily invested in a sport you spend a lot of time together on and off the field and form bonds for life. Most of these boys have been together since they were 6 or 7 years old.
Durden’s son Colby was one of the teammates who was there providing aid to his friend as paramedics arrived. Colby was one of those teammates who held vigil at the hospital.
Mauldin says that the outpouring of community support isn’t surprising. “This is such a great town,” said Mauldin. “The outpouring of love and support for this family is amazing, and very much needed.”
“This is a baseball town, ” said Durden. “Probably more than any other sport. So many memories happened at the park growing up.”
Memories and bonds that form for life.
Another prayer vigil was held for Grayson Pope at the Trussville Mall on Wednesday Night. Another outpouring of love from a community for a family that is part of Trussville’s baseball family.
A social media post from Pope’s older sister Emma stated that the most recent news was not good.
Titled “My Superhero Keep Fighting” Emma stated that doctors found more trauma on his brain in an MRI. She said in the post that there was “no surgery that can fix it.”
Her final sentence in the post simply read “So pray for healing and a miracle at this point because he is fighting and needs a miracle right now guys.”
