Photographer/Clint Crawford
Mourners light candles during the candlelight memorial service for Chase Ashley Thursday.

By Carolyn Cole
Published on August 9, 2008

Former Bronco infielder Jimmy Gillespie was looking forward to being a Rose State Raider with best friend Chase Ashley.

Two weeks before the college sophomores were set to move into their apartment, Ashley was hospitalized and died this past Monday.

Friday, on Gillespie’s 19th birthday, he attended his best friend’s funeral.

“Something like this is completely unfair and unexplainable,” Gillespie said.

Debbie Ashley said her son started getting sick a few weeks ago. He was finishing several night classes, trying to finish term papers and prepare for his finals. Chase Ashley planned to study sports medicine once he finished his general studies requirements at Rose State College, where he played first base for the Raiders on a full scholarship.

“It started out with a sore throat,” she said. “They treated him for strep throat. We still don’t know the actual cause.”

She said her son was otherwise healthy, strong and athletic. He fell in love with baseball at age 5, when he joined a tee-ball team and also played football. When he was in the ninth-grade, he broke the conference record for interceptions while playing on the freshman Bronco football team.

In 10th-grade, Chase Ashley chose baseball over football, she said, because it was his passion.

“His whole life was wrapped around baseball, family and friends,” Debbie Ashley said. “He had so many close friends.”

Bronco teammate Tanner Wohlschlegel said so many came to the hospital to support their friend that Mustang youth filled the waiting rooms on several floors.

“The hospital (staff) was getting mad, we had so many people,” he said.

Many slept overnight at the hospital praying for their friend, Devon Solomon said. At times the crowd grew past 100, and she said it never dwindled below 20.

Solomon said she felt she needed to support Chase Ashley because he came to her aid and cheered her up when she faced tough times.

“There have been times we have been so upset, and he would drop everything to be with us,” she said.

Gillespie described his best friend as at times obnoxious, ornery and mischievious.
“He was full of energy all of the time,” he said.

Ashley is best known by their Class of 2007 alumni as the leader of “Mullet Pride. Gillespie said Ashley wore a blond mullet wig to school on the days of home football games, and that night he ran up and down the home-side with a Mustang flag, mullet hair blowing in the breeze, every time the Broncos scored a goal.

Solomon said the boys called it the Big Red Crew.

“He was a hysterical class clown for sure,” she said. “Anything to make you laugh.”

Gillespie said Ashley had “never met a stranger” and befriended everyone he met.
Teammate Cody Lacy said Ashley was always friendly and joking around.

“He was the first person who was nice to me when I got to high school,” Lacy said. “He was a good guy, real funny.”

Lacy tried to describe a face Ashley made when he was trying to cheer someone up, sticking out his lower lip, but then gave up.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” he said. “You had to see it.”

While Lacy said Ashley kept a light air in the dugout, he was a dedicated ballplayer, and he looked up to him. Gillespie said his friend was competitive, and his drive to win pushed his whole team forward.

“If he didn’t win, he got mad ... when you are not used to losing very often, you don’t take it very well,” he said.

Ashley trained and played hard, Coach Tony Evans said, and his talent as a strong, defensive first-baseman hasn’t been easy to replace on the team since his graduation.

“He was a hardworking kid,” Evans said. “He was very athletic, he had a lot of talent. He didn’t waste his talent. He worked hard to take advantage of everything God had given him.

“He was a good kid,” he said. “It’s a shock what he went through because it happened so quickly.”

A lot of Ashley’s friends are still in shock, Lacy said. Just a few days before Ashley was hospitalized, the friends drove around town, talking about college. Lacy will start Rose State this month as a freshman — also with a baseball scholarship — and he expects to play outfield.

“He was good old Chase, seemed perfectly normal ... I was looking forward to playing with him,” he said. “It’s going to be little awkward him not being there.”

Less than a week later, Gillespie talked with his friend about the latest movie starring Will Ferrell, one of their favorite actors. As he left, Ashley said, “Goodbye, Bub,” which he explained his friend called all of his close buddies. The next day Ashley was transferred to another hospital, and his condition deteriorated.

“I would have traded places with him,” Gillespie said. “He touched so many people’s lives.”

Solomon said she can’t stop from asking herself why her friend died, someone who was so young, healthy and athletic.

“It doesn’t make sense to us,” she said. “We can’t figure it out. We should be worrying about who is going to what college ... there is no reason why this should happen.”

Solomon and sisters Kaylie and Jamie Thorpe and several other friends took their emotions and turned them into energy to plan a candlelight vigil for their friend Thursday night at the Mustang baseball field. Hundreds attended the vigil. Friends started a disaster fund to support Ashley’s family. The fund is established at the IBC location in Yukon.

Lacy said they all wanted to support Chase’s parents, who Lacy called his second mother and father.

“There is lots of love for the family,” he said. “We are here for anything they need.”
Debbie Ashley said her family was thankful for their friends’ support.

“They have all been such a Godsend to me and to my husband,” she said. “It’s hard to describe, they have just lifted both of us up and the rest of our family.”

As the Ashleys’ feel the compassion of their friends, they decided to donate their son’s organs to fulfill his wishes. Oklahomans received his liver and kidneys, and his heart was donated to a 46-year-old Missouri man.

“That’s the way Chase would want to be,” she said.