Credit: Bucks County Community College
A baseball field on the Bucks County Community College Newtown Township campus was recently dedicated to honor a student athlete who battled cancer.
In a ceremony recently, officials at the community college unveiled the plaque for the Brian Seibert Memorial Field and presented a framed Bucks Centurions baseball jersey to his parents, Jim and Maureen Seibert of Upper Makefield. Seibert’s young nieces and nephews then took to the pitcher’s mound, and the oldest nephew tossed out the ceremonial first pitch before a game against Lehigh Carbon Community College.
Seibert, who played baseball for the Centurions in 1993 and 1994 as a switch-hitting second baseman, had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 11 and passed away in 1997 at the age of 23.
“Although he left us far too soon, Brian left a mark on our hearts and on our world, and we are all the better for it,” said Stephanie Shanblatt, president of Bucks County Community College.
Shanblatt noted that more than two dozen students have received the Brian Seibert Memorial Scholarship, established in 2001 by his parents to help Bucks students who have or have had cancer. In 2015, the Seiberts launched a second scholarship in their son’s name for student athletes.
The dedication plaque on the field reads, “May all players who enter upon this field find Brian’s same strength to finish an inning, his perseverance to stand tall after a strike out, and his courage and humility to accept a win as well as a loss.”
