UIC Gift is Driving ALS Research

On the soccer field, progress rarely comes from the actions of a single player. It comes from coordinated effort, a shared determination to move the ball forward — the whole team advancing, one pass at a time.

At the University of Illinois College of Medicine (UI COM), that same spirit of teamwork is at the heart of a different kind of pursuit: advancing research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a devastating neurodegenerative disease that still has no cure.

Driving that effort is the Patrick Grange Memorial Foundation, created by a close‑knit group of former University of Illinois Chicago soccer teammates and friends after the loss of one of their own.

Patrick Grange was, by all accounts, a remarkable person — not because he commanded attention, but because of the way he showed up for others. “He wasn’t the one dominating the room,” says Ryan Lindgren BS ‘00, a friend and former teammate who serves as the foundation’s president. “But he was always the person you wanted there.”

On the field, however, Grange played with a real intensity. He was fast, aggressive and relentless. That contrast — quiet off the field, fierce on it — left a lasting impression on those who played and coached alongside him at UIC.

Years later, that same group of teammates would be reunited under far different circumstances. In 2010, when he was just 28 years old, Grange was diagnosed with ALS.

“When that kind of news hits, everything just goes blank,” says Lindgren, recalling the moment Grange shared his diagnosis.

Just 17 months later, he was gone.

In the face of that loss, his teammates did what teams do: they acted. Within months, they organized their first fundraiser in Chicago, a grassroots effort to support Grange and his family. What began as a golf outing and a modest gathering quickly took on new meaning. After Grange’s passing, those early efforts evolved into the Patrick Grange Memorial Foundation.