George Tasson saw a need and felt he had the time on his hands.

So he lent a hand.

An Elmhurst resident for 52 years, the former Marine who turned 81 in March is in his 26th year volunteering with the York girls softball program.

Every day, rain or shine, Tasson makes the six-block drive over to the Bryan Middle School field to prepare it for the softball team to play.

He also keeps the official book and runs the scoreboard.

“I committed to it. I do what I committed to,” Tasson said. “It keeps me busy.”

“It’s people like George that make the world a better place,” York athletic director Rob Wagner said.

Tasson, a casual sports fan with no children of his own, happened upon the York program through a family connection.

Married to longtime York softball coach Tom Babyar’s sister, Tasson was often invited by Babyar to attend games, but his job as a field service technician for Motorola kept him busy.

Tasson saw a need when he observed Babyar and longtime assistant Dave Williams spending time preparing the field.

“Initially, it started with Babyar’s Chevy van; he’d drive it around the field and pull a board with a bunch of big spikes, had to rough up the ground and smooth it out,” Tasson said. “Dave and I were sitting in a McDonald’s, and I told him I got a drag on order. I adapted it to a golf cart. After Babyar retired, I got an actual groomer, and still use it.”

Tasson started helping out part-time in 1999. He went full-time after he retired from AT&T in 2003, and has kept with it through five coaches since Babyar retired in 2013.

“I saw a need,” Tasson said. “The coaches were doing a lot of ancillary stuff that I could do. That way, they could spend more time with the kids.”

Born in Oak Park, Tasson went to the since-closed Cooley Vocational High School on the near north side of Chicago. He graduated in June of 1964 and joined the Marines a month later.

He did a 30-week course in Jacksonville and then went overseas for two years, five months of that time in Vietnam as an aircraft electrician.

“Main maintenance happened on Okinawa, had a big hangar there, five planes in Vietnam,” Tasson said. “We were like the airline for the upper third of Vietnam.”

In the Marines for four years, when Tasson got out, he worked as a field service technician for Motorola for 33 years.

He’s been an active member of the York Radio Club, which has been around since 1935.

“We meet once a month, socialize, have meetings, talk about antennas and operations. It’s a hobby,” Tasson said. “It’s kind of unique, there are about 50 of us in the club. We have fun with it.”

It keeps Tasson busy in retirement, as does his field work for the softball team, making multiple trips to Bryan Middle School on game days.

So positive, an enthusiastic glass-half-full type, Tasson continues to be a staple of the program through multiple coaches, someone seen at all the games.

“He gets our field ready, always available, nervous when we have rainy weather like today, Johnny on the spot with stuff around home plate. He can get it ready when it rains that day,” Wagner said. “We count on him a lot. York is a large public high school. In the spring, we are spread out all over the city of Elmhurst with games going on. He really helps out our staff, getting stuff ready.”

Tasson laughs that his wife is not interested in softball, and probably never saw a game of her brother’s teams.

But he loves it.

“You feel better, you sleep better. Anybody can sit in the house and watch TV all day; you can do that any time,” Tasson said. “I am paying it forward, but I am having fun doing it, enjoy being around these kids.

“It’s definitely beneficial for me to have a commitment. When you retire, you just can’t stop. I love being around the kids. You hear so much negative stuff. When you are with the kids, there’s a lot of good ones, three-sport athletes on the honor roll, kids doing the right thing. That is rewarding to me.”