By Freddie Reed

My heart was racing as I went through the motions in warmups. The stands are packed, and the floodlights are blinding. I am not used to the crowd and the lights, because Collegiate home games are during the day, and normally, only parents of the players show up. Once warmups are done, we line up, and we hear a story that touches our hearts and reminds us why we’re really there. 

Frankie Woolwine Challenge logo. Image credit: The Frankie Challenge.

Every year, the Collegiate varsity lacrosse teams play the teams from Douglas Freeman High School at their home stadium in the Frankie Woolwine Memorial game. In 2016, Frankie Woolwine, who attended Collegiate and Freeman, died in a drunk driving accident at the age of 16. His father, Roy Woolwine, created a foundation called The Frankie Woolwine Story in his memory. The memorial game was first played in 2017, and Frank’s father always talks to the players of both teams before the game, urging us to make healthy choices. 

At this year’s game, on Wed., April 22, Roy began his speech as he always does, by talking about how Frank died, driving with a 0.19 blood alcohol level, twice the legal limit for those 21 and over. He was driving 79 mph in a 30 mph zone. Frank played both lacrosse and football and had a bright future in both. His father told us he was a kind and compassionate kid who made one wrong decision that ended his life.

The goal of the program is to reach as many kids as possible. The Frankie Woolwine Story spends all donated funds on social media and marketing. This includes printing and selling t-shirts, producing short videos on social media, delivering in-person speeches, and running public service announcements on billboards and TV, with the goal of reaching one million teens within the next three years. 

Before our lacrosse game started, Roy told us that they had just reached three million people. This includes sending out videos to high schools to learn about the dangers of drunk driving and in-person talks with students. 

Roy Woolwine speaking before the 2026 game. Photo credit: Chris Conklin.

Roy also came to speak with Collegiate’s Seniors during a class meeting about the importance of not getting behind the wheel while intoxicated. Rhodes Neuner (‘26) said that, “this was not just another lecture,” and that this was “a real story that left a mark.” Frankie’s story had a significant impact on the audience. Many other students who had never heard this story before took it to heart. JD Chen (‘26) told me that, “Although it was my first time hearing the story, I felt connected to Mr. Woolwine.” 

The foundation reaches out to high schools everywhere, not just Collegiate and Freeman. CBS 6 wrote an article about the foundation three years ago, articulating that underage drinking leads to roughly 3,900 deaths per year. The article quotes Roy stating, “I vowed to do whatever I could to prevent it from happening again,” making sure that “no family should ever have to go through this.”

This foundation has impacted an incalculable number of high school students and is only going to grow in the future years. The boys varsity game was intense and ended in a gritty Collegiate win. What stuck with people from that night was not the win, however, but the message.