Pat Tillman’s legacy lives on 20 years after death

Twenty is a significant number this year for the legacy of Pat Tillman.

The former Arizona Cardinals safety was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan 20 years ago on April 22, 2004. The following year was the first Pat’s Run for the Pat Tillman Foundation, which was co-founded by Alex Garwood, who was also the co-founder of the run, which takes place for the 20th time on April 13 and will draw an estimated 30,000 people.

Garwood is Tillman’s brother-in-law and said, “It’s interesting when people talk about 20 years because on the one hand, it’s great that we’re still talking about him and that’s a huge part of our job with our foundation so that people, especially younger people in particular, understand the great example that someone like Pat puts forth and it’s also remarkable that that much time has passed is shocking. It seems like yesterday you were having a cup of coffee with him.”

Garwood said that today as a guest during the taping of the Pro Football Hall of Fame radio show on SiriusXM NFL radio with me and Rich Desrosiers, who is the Hall’s chief communications and content officer. The show begins at 7 pm Arizona time tonight and will also air from 2-4 am Saturday and on Sunday from 4-6 am and 3-5 pm and can be heard on the SiriusXM app.

“My wife and I are very fortunate,” Garwood added. “We’ve got three sons and our oldest is 23, our middle guy is 21 and our youngest is 18. So I’m not super great at math, but I have two boys that Pat met and one that he never met. So something for us is kind of a selfish thing is how do we keep Pat’s memory alive. How do we share who he was with our boys?

“He’s been ever-present in their lives and it’s just something that we work on, quite frankly, daily. And then how do you then translate that from a small little world just our small family, but how do we translate that into a foundation. How do we share it with 30,000 of our closest friends at Pat’s Run next weekend? It’s an interesting balance.”

But one that has had a significant impact on many.

For more information, go to Building The Next Generation Of Leaders | Pat Tillman Foundation

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