His name is attached to the training room at Bowdoin College. It's on a time-worn scoreboard that once kept track of runs and innings at Deering High School. Scholarships are presented in his memory at both schools.

For many, the passage of time has blurred the reasons why. Louis S. Tripaldi, a guidance counselor and baseball coach at Deering, passed away 30 years ago today from Hodgkin's disease. He was 29.

"People may know of my son, but they don't know him," says Phyllis Tripaldi. Her words were more a statement of fact than a lament. Spend 20 minutes talking with her and you realize she still finds joy and humor in life. She's proud that she drives herself around Portland. Happy, too, that the batches of cookies she bakes bring smiles when she takes them to a relative's doughnut shop.

"My mother used to make lemonade for our neighbors on Middle Street. We lived across from Micucci's Grocery."

Middle Street was part of Portland's "Little Italy" when Louis Tripaldi grew up in the 1950s and '60s. There was little extra money in the Tripaldi house but Louis learned what it meant to share with others. He knew how it felt to get up before dawn to go to a job before classes.

He loved baseball and played football and hockey as well, but his performances are not why his name is on a plaque in the Farley Field House at Bowdoin or in the weight room at Deering. That he cared for those around him meant much more.

"I wish I had a story about him," said Allen Auerr. "But it was 35 years ago (as Bowdoin classmates). I remember him as outgoing and fun loving." Yet, when the call came from another classmate asking for money to help fund a Bowdoin scholarship, Auerr didn't hesitate.

Auerr wasn't involved in the naming of the Tripaldi Training Room. That was another group of classmates. This week, people in the alumni, athletic and communications departments at Bowdoin couldn't answer the question: What moved others to honor Tripaldi in this way?

Maybe, says Tom DiBiase, a childhood friend, they recognized how far Tripaldi had come from a background that was so different from their own.

Jim Kilbride can understand. He returned to Deering in 2001, 20 years after he received the Louis S. Tripaldi Scholarship Award. He had phoned Phyllis, explaining how her son had influenced his life and asking if he could join her in presenting the scholarship that spring.

Kilbride hadn't given his future much thought when he was a sophomore playing baseball during Tripaldi's first and last year coaching the baseball team. College, he believed, was for rich kids and he had no money. Tripaldi noticed the lack of direction and asked Kilbride to see him one morning in the guidance office. A door to Kilbride's future opened.

After he graduated from Deering, Kilbride went to the University of Maine, later transferring to Eastern Nazarene College, earning a degree in communications. In 2001, he was an executive with an insurance company, living in Virginia.

Kneeling at Tripaldi's casket, Kilbride asked God to show him how he could say thank you to Tripaldi. Two years later, Kilbride was called to receive the Tripaldi scholarship.

"He was five feet out of his seat and there were tears streaming down his face," said Brian Gordon, the baseball coach who followed Tripaldi. "Lou saw a little bit of himself in Jimmy." Kilbride knew that.

"This was one person pouring his life into another's," said Kilbride in a 2001 newspaper story. "The more we give of ourselves, the greater the moments we have."

Al Kirk, a longtime teacher and coach at Deering, remembers how students connected with Tripaldi. To Kirk, it seemed obvious. The teenagers understood how much Tripaldi invested in them.

Deering AD Bill LeRoy says the Tripaldi scoreboard will be refurbished and returned to Deering's playing fields. The Tripaldi scholarship continues to be presented to a Deering senior....