‘Cole would have loved this’

The Aledo Black 7U baseball team was playing in the championship game of this summer’s USCSA World Series in Baton Rouge and found itself behind for the first time in the tournament.

That’s when the baseball gods intervened, perhaps at the insistence of the team’s late coach Cole Thompson.

A lightning storm delayed the game for two and a half hours. The game finally resumed, despite the rain still falling. 

Aledo Black didn’t let it faze them. The team rallied from five runs down to win 12-11 on a walk-off triple.

There seemed to be a moment’s hesitation before the coaches and players realized the magnitude of the hit. The roar of the fans in the stands brought them back.

Right about then the sky cleared and the sun peeked through. And, instead of rain, tears began to flow. 

Most of these same players, as 6-year-olds, were putting together a solid season last year when tragedy struck. During a practice the afternoon of June 4, 2025, Thompson collapsed from a heart attack and was taken to the hospital. He died two weeks later at the age of 42, leaving behind his wife, Niki, and two children, Troop, and his oldest son, Tagg, an Aledo Black player. 

The coaches/fathers felt that loss themselves and for their players/sons. 

“When Cole went down, everything shifted to everything but baseball,” said Ryan MacDonald, one of the Aledo Black coaches. “Then it became, at some point, do we even try to get these kids back on the field? And then the kids may have been ready, but I don’t think we as a coaching staff could have stepped back on that field and been OK. I know we all struggle with it in our own ways.”

Jacob Moehrig, another coach, said, “Baseball was the last thing we wanted to do. But it was probably what we needed to do to heal; just no one wanted to do it. But all these kids also earned it in their spring season.”

Tyler Baucom, who took over as head coach, admitted there wasn’t a lot of love for the game during the summer of 2025.

“At the end of the day, when the summer was over and you look back, baseball is how we all met. Baseball is how I met Cole and built all these relationships so you can’t help but still love the game,” Baucom said.

But, it was that love of the game that helped the players and coaches begin to heal, assistant coach Dan Herbert said.

“After June 4th and later when Cole passed, baseball was easy to hate because it was the thing we were doing when it happened,” Herbert said. “It brought that trauma to the surface. But I think it was baseball and being at the field where we healed.”

Aledo Black marched on that summer and finished third in the World Series, coming so close to winning it all for their coach.

This year they did.

Aledo Black dominated throughout the tournament this year, winning six games by a combined score of 86-17 to reach the championship game and play a team from Alabama.

“I saw my son cry after the game and I have never seen him cry like that,” assistant coach Breece Johnson said. “I want to go back and ask him, ‘Is it all built up from everything from 6U all the way through?’ He’s 7; there’s no way he knows that weight. But does he? I’ve never seen my kid cry after winning something.”

In the days after the victory Aledo Black assistant coach Justin Hall gave kudos to Thompson.

“Cole was very good about the calm side of baseball compared to me,” Hall said. “He had that way of kind of saying a lot without saying much. His cadence put you at ease. I still don’t know how he did it, but he gave me an appreciation for how you should be a coach and father.”

Thompson was certainly on the minds of all the Aledo Black faithful following the World Series win, especially, of course, Thompson’s wife, Niki.

“There was a moment where everyone was thinking, ‘Cole would have loved this,’ but it was more a moment of the celebration for all of the work everyone put in to still be there and show up,” she said. “The redemption of the last 13 months have offered and how much things have changed and how everyone has grown.”

Later, as the parents and players gathered in the stadium parking lot, a rainbow could be seen -- another sign for the group.

“Sunday before Cole had his heart attack we were at Jake’s,” Hall said. “It was raining and the kids were outside acting crazy. We got a picture of Cole taking a picture of the boys with a rainbow behind them so anytime we see a rainbow, we send it in one of our group chats. We know Cole’s being present, watching over us.”