Rivalries are cast aside to support Marathon run

Silver Lake Regional football coach Dana Battista intends to run his third Boston Marathon, but unlike the first two, this one is for his former football coach at Duxbury High -- David Kispert, who died of cancer in 1995.

When Battista joins the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge Team in the 111th Boston Marathon tomorrow , he will be wearing a shirt with Kispert's name and the words "Coaches Against Cancer."

Last season, Battista, a 1981 Duxbury graduate, felt the urge to do something to honor Kispert. The Marathon made sense.

"I felt pretty grateful I had the chance to coach because of him," Battista said. "I thought, 'Why not?' "

Battista started training Nov. 1. During football season, he got up at 4 a.m. to train, then taught history at Pembroke, and led football practice at Silver Lake in the afternoon.

"It's been pretty grueling, but realizing I was running for Dana-Farber and cancer patients took a little bit of the pain and the sting of it away," Battista said. "What I'm doing isn't really much in comparison to what they do."

The Pembroke and Silver Lake schools, despite a traditional Thanksgiving Day football rivalry, are supporting Battista in his Marathon effort. Pembroke hosted a winter dance that raised more than $1,000 for his cause. Battista expects both his students and his players will make their way to Boston to support his run.

Opposing coaches from the Patriot League also have donated money to help Battista surpass his original goal of $3,000. He now wants to raise more than $7,000. Some of the donations have been sent with personal notes about how Kispert touched their lives before he died of brain cancer.

"He was the type of guy who went out of his way for people," Battista said, "and he did a lot of things to help a lot of people."

Battista said he is hopeful that other opportunities will come from "Coaches Against Cancer" in the form of fund-raisers or golf tournaments.

For now, he is focused on the Marathon. In the last mile of the 26.2-mile race, Battista will run with 12-year-old Michael Crawford of Brockton, whose brain cancer is in remission.

The amount of time spent on training over the past months has allowed Battista to reflect on his high school moments. When he coaches, he says, Kispert still seems present. "I always think he's watching every one of my games," Battista said. "He's around all the time. I know that."

3 from Duxbury

heat up ice action

Former players from the Duxbury boys' hockey program had an impact on the post graduate and college levels this season. Bill Carroll, a member of the Duxbury's 2005 Division 1 state championship team, collected seven goals and four assists at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. The Corsairs had a 25-3-1 record and won the Eastern College Athletic Conference Northeast Tournament championship. Mike Kelly, also a member of the 2005 Duxbury team, scored one goal and two assists for Connecticut College. Terry Woods, a member of last year's Super 8 squad, had eight goals and 16 assists at Phillips Academy in Andover. He'll play for Babson next year. Sean McDonough, also from the 2006 team, had nine goals and 10 assists at Gilmour Academy in Ohio.

Stonehill's Gill

an All-American

Stonehill College junior Keith Gill of Brockton has become the first athlete in school history to earn All-America honors in three sports. He received All-America honors in outdoor track and cross-country, and in March became an indoor All-American with a fifth-place finish in the mile (4 minutes 8.49 seconds) at the Division 2 Indoor Track and Field Championships. Other Skyhawk All-Americans include the men's distance relay team: Derek Hebert of Rockland, Brandon Beloin and David Metzger, both of Connecticut, and Dickie Gerry of New Hampshire.

Curran, Maloney

making their mark

Chris Curran and Brian Maloney , both 2006 Brockton graduates, are playing baseball this season for their new schools. Curran is starting in center field for Miami-Dade Community College, where he is hitting .344 with one home run, 20 runs batted in and 24 stolen bases. Maloney , a pitcher, is at UMass-Dartmouth, where he is 2-1 with 22 strikeouts and a 3.00 earned-run average.

Monique Walker can be reached at mwalker@globe.com.