Community remembers Cary native, cancer support fundraiser Rick Carone

After Rick Carone passed away in the early hours of June 29, his brother Tim Carone and Tim’s wife, Kim, gathered a number of close friends for dinner that same evening.

“We went to dinner and we talked about Rick, because that’s what we do,” said Tim Carone, 39.

Cary native Rick Carone died last week at age 46 after a four-year battle with pancreatic cancer. He died in his childhood home, where he had lived with his brother for the past four years.

Friends and family gathered once again Wednesday for Carone’s wake at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Cary. Carone’s funeral is at 10:30 a.m. Thursday at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church, 410 N. First St. in Cary.

Carone originally had been given six months to live when he was diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer in May 2013. In the four years since, he touched countless lives with his positivity and generosity, raising thousands of dollars through the Team Carone Foundation and giving back to the community in the form of scholarships, donations to cancer research and what he called “Gifts of Love.”

“It’s just who he was: charismatic, people are attracted to him,” Tim Carone said. “Magnetizing. In everything he did, he ultimately excelled in it. And people saw that. That’s why people flocked to him.”

Shortly after his diagnosis, the community organized “Cary for Carone” to support his battle, and that soon inspired the Team Carone Foundation. The foundation raised money through an annual music festival (scheduled for Sept. 23 this year). This spring, the “Carone 5-Tool Player Scholarship” gave away $16,000 in scholarships to District 155 high schools. And every year, Carone gave a “gift of love” to an individual in the community battling cancer.

Tim Carone, who is the president of the Team Carone Foundation, said there is no doubt that the foundation will continue with its mission.

“The groundwork and the foundation is set up for us now to keep moving forward, because we know what he wanted and we want to keep moving forward to help people,” Tim Carone said.

'I look up to him'
Rick Carone starred on the baseball and football fields at Cary-Grove in the late 1980s. Trojans baseball coach Don Sutherland, who finished his 30th season this spring, loves to tell the story of the time Carone stole three bases in one inning.

“Woodstock hit him with a pitch,” Sutherland recalled. “He had the green light to steal. He stole second, stole third, waited one pitch, then stole home because he was mad that he got hit.

“He was just going to take charge of that moment. Who can do that? Who can just say, ‘I’m going to get this done.’ Of course, Rick could.”

Tim Carone, seven years younger than his brother, can’t remember those years too well, but he knows he used to wear his brother’s jersey around town.

“Even younger people knew who he was because he excelled in baseball and football,” Tim Carone said. “He was awesome. He had a bunch of records at Cary-Grove High School for years.

Sutherland has another favorite story about the time Carone gathered his teammates and their cars to lug bricks from a brick company in Cary to the high school baseball field, where they built their own dugouts.

“We had nothing out there but backstops at Cary-Grove when I took the job,” Sutherland said. “Just because of Rick, our kids were throwing bricks in the back of their cars and parents’ cars. And I go, ‘I hope your parents know we’re doing this.’ ”

Those original dugouts have since been torn down. Even so, many of the kids who roam the halls at C-G still know of Rick Carone.

Max Skol, a rising senior on the Trojans football team, and his family reconnected with Carone after Max’s older brother, Zeke, was diagnosed with a brain tumor at age 9. Zeke, now a junior in college, is cancer-free, but the family’s relationship with Carone continued.

Their mother, Becki Skol, helped out at the Carone house in the last weeks of Rick Carone’s life.

“It was a rough time, but I’ll have him in my mind during the season,” Max Skol said. “He meant so much. I feel like he just showed what it was like to care about people and showed other people what it was like to live. The last four years, once he was diagnosed, he fought through so much that now it’s like I look up to him.”

'That was Rick'
After his Cary-Grove years, Rick Carone went on to play baseball at Illinois State and eventually transferred to Ole Miss for the 1993 baseball season. He was drafted after his lone season in Oxford, Mississippi, and played in the White Sox minor leagues system from 1993 to 1996.

Marc MacMillan was a freshman on the 1993 Ole Miss baseball team. Now an assistant coach for the Rebels, MacMillan’s best memory is not of Carone’s prowess on the baseball diamond but his antics off the field.

The athletic trainer for Ole Miss baseball in those days didn’t want players wearing cleats in the training room for fear they’d tear up his rug. One day MacMillan was getting treatment when Carone walked in wearing no cleats, only socks.

“He comes in there and starts dancing,” MacMillan said. “He’s like – our trainer’s name was Steve – he goes, ‘Hey Steve, I’m cutting up the rug.’ I know that’s silly, but that was Rick.”

MacMillan saw Carone a few times over the years when Carone returned to Ole Miss.

Carone’s oldest daughter Karsyn, 20, will be a junior at Ole Miss this fall. His other daughter, Tyler, 17, will be a senior in high school in Texas.

Carone played at Ole Miss for only one season, but it was enough to make a lasting impression.

“At the end of the day, you come to find out that this was a guy that really was about relationships,” MacMillan said. “He could make you laugh and found the joy in everything. When I think of Rick, there’s three things that come to mind: energy giver, living life to the fullest and someone who always has a smile on their face. Why would you not want to be around someone that lives like that daily?”

'He will be greatly missed'
Haley Lichter and Rick Carone were both diagnosed with cancer around the same time.

Lichter, then 17, had recently graduated from Cary-Grove when doctors found a tumor in her brain. A mutual friend introduced her to Carone soon after.

“They kind of helped each other through their different chemos, whether it was chemo or radiation,” said Misty Lichter, Haley’s mother. “Whatever they were going through, they would call each other or text each other. They had this weird bond, no matter the age difference.”

Haley Lichter was the recipient of the Team Carone Foundation’s “Gift of Love” in 2014. She was a guest of honor at the foundation’s music festival, and Carone helped set up a meeting with country singer Luke Bryan.

Carone knew Bryan from the hunting TV show “Buck Commander,” where Carone worked as a videographer in the past. Bryan is one of the co-stars on the show.

Carone told Haley they were going on a college visit. Instead he set up a surprise meeting with Bryan and they watched Bryan’s concert from backstage.

“Luke was one of her all-time favorites,” Misty Lichter said. “It was literally something that she could never thank him enough for. It was the most amazing day, where she felt she was a normal teenager again.”

Haley Lichter died on Jan. 15, 2015, at 19. Misty Lichter started the Heroes Like Haley nonprofit to raise awareness toward pediatric brain tumors. Carone served as the guest speaker at last year’s annual Heroes Like Haley 5K. This year’s 5K, which is Sunday at Cary-Grove Park, is dedicated to Carone.

“He was the person that was willing to do anything for anybody,” Misty Lichter said. “If it brought a smile to your face, then he would do it for you. He will be greatly missed.”