The summer of 2014 remains uniquely notable thanks to a powerful we-are-the-world moment when a heartwarming cultural phenomenon known as the Ice Bucket Challenge captured the planet’s attention in the fight against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
On Thursday, in a chilly celebration of the 2003 graduate’s stunning legacy, St. John’s Prep commemorated one of its most influential alumni at Pete Frates ’03 Diamond by replicating the viral challenge popularized by the late Pete Frates a decade ago.
“Family is the story of the Prep and those who came before, those here now and those to follow will leave here prepared to do good,” said Nancy Frates, Pete’s mother and CEO of the Frates Family Foundation, who was among the 500 attendees participating in Thursday’s challenge. “How to do it is your decision. God had other plans for Pete, but he relied on the preparation he received at St. John’s to become his best self, live out his goodness and build this legacy.”
In late July of 2014, Frates learned about the ice-bucket challenge from his friend Pat Quinn, deceased at 37 due to complications from ALS in 2020, who wanted to leverage the trend into a fundraiser for the disease. As is now well known, the stunt involves people making a video of themselves dumping a bucket of ice water on their heads, posting it on Facebook, Instagram or other social media sites, and then challenging friends to do the same within 24 hours or donate $100 to ALS (most do both).
Frates nominated himself for the challenge, tagged some friends, and the theme spread rapidly in Boston-area social circles, before lighting up the web in August of that year, inspiring people like Bill Gates, LeBron James, Taylor Swift and Leonardo DiCaprio to dump a bucket of ice on their heads and speak out for his cause.
“Pete will always be an amazing role model of faith, resilience, perseverance, inspiration, and servant-leadership,” said Head of School Dr. Ed Hardiman P’19 ’21 ’26. “He is beloved by our community and the world for his courage and commitment to serving as a warrior for the common good. The loss of Pete at such a young age is tragic. His strength, selflessness, and determination to change the trajectory of ALS research is a legacy that has already changed lives. The Prep community is committed to sharing Pete’s story and empowering our students to carry on Pete’s legacy of servant leadership and advocacy.”
More than 1.2 million Ice Bucket Challenge videos were shared on Facebook in the weeks after Frates’ initial stunt, and the topic was mentioned more than 2.2 million times on Twitter from July 29 to August 17, 2014. The ALS Association picked up 260,000 new donors in 19 days. According to DMR Statistics, Ice Bucket Challenge YouTube videos exceeded one billion views across 153 countries in 2014. Facebook video views eclipsed 10 billion, including 440 million posts featuring an ice bucket challenge.
Frates, a Beverly man who succumbed to ALS at 34 in 2019, became the talisman of a movement. The virtual challenge gained global momentum, raising more than $159 million for the ALS Association in 2014 and paving the way for advanced funding commitments into research, drug therapy development and clinical access in the United States and beyond. Since that time, donations from the Ice Bucket Challenge and multiple charitable initiatives in association with “Team Frate Train,” Pete Frates #3, and others have raised nearly $1 billion. What became the Frates Family Foundation has increased funding for ALS research by 187 percent, supporting 550 projects in the United States and 18 other countries.
“For me, today is a full-circle event,” said Mike Pitt, a 2004 graduate of St. John’s and Executive Director of the Frates Family Foundation. “I met Pete for the first time just beyond that outfield wall for freshman football practice. Pete had compassion when he got here, but the Prep nurtured that and cultivated it and ultimately, it bloomed into the Ice Bucket Challenge and the movement we’re commemorating today.”
GAME-CHANGER
A three-sport standout in football, baseball, and hockey at St. John’s Prep, Frates received the Athletic Director’s Award as a senior and was inducted into the School’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2012. He played four years in center field at Boston College and captained the BC Eagles as a college senior in 2007, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in communications. In March 2012, at the age of 27, he was diagnosed with ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Frates responded by building a legacy of philanthropy and humanitarianism, living life courageously in the face of peril and boldly in his compassion for others.
Officially, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was co-founded in 2014 by Frates, Quinn and the late Anthony Senerchia, who passed away from ALS complications at age 46 in November of 2017. In August of that year, then-Governor Charlie Baker signed an act declaring the first week of every August “Ice Bucket Challenge Week” in Massachusetts to “annually honor the contributions of Pete Frates and his family, and raise awareness and resources for those battling ALS.”
In September of 2017, with Frates in his sixth year of battling the disease, ForeEdge Books released Challenge, a book about Frates, his family, and how they inspired the 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge. One of the final statutory acts of the 116th Congress in 2020 was to push through a legislative initiative that launched in Frates’ living room in 2016. The ALS Disability Insurance Access Act, now federal law, ensures that those diagnosed with the degenerative nerve disease can receive Social Security Insurance benefits immediately, without having to endure a five-month waiting period.
St. John’s honored Frates in three important ways in recent years, naming him the school’s 2018 Distinguished Alumnus in addition to retiring his No. 3 jersey in hockey, baseball, and football in the fall of 2017. Frates remains the only scholar-athlete alumnus in Prep history to have his number so honored (late alumnus, 1st Lt. Derek Hines ’99, had his No. 23 ice hockey jersey retired in 2018). The school also dedicated its varsity baseball field as the “Pete Frates ’03 Diamond” in 2017. ESPN has released a trilogy of documentary shorts about his journey (2014, 2015 and 2024).
Frates is survived by his wife, Julie, 35, and his 10-year-old daughter, Lucy, along with his parents, John and Nancy, and his siblings, Andrew and Jenn (Frates) Mayo.
