A Lion Remembered: Mid Valley Golf Honors Eddie Kaufman as His Legacy Lives On
By: Justin Bradley | SportzWire | September 17, 2026 | Photo courtesy Justin Focus
The first annual Eddie Kaufman Memorial Match brought Mid Valley and Lakeland together to remember one of the Spartans’ most accomplished golfers — and a young man whose impact continues far beyond the game.
SCOTT TWP. — There are golf matches decided by a scorecard.
And then there are afternoons when the score becomes secondary.
Mid Valley and Lakeland gathered on September 16 for the first annual Eddie Kaufman Memorial Match, honoring a former Spartan captain, standout golfer and young man whose legacy continues to reach far beyond the course.
Nearly one year after Kaufman passed away following a battle with a rare cancer, his family returned to a place and a game that had been such an important part of his life.
For Eddie’s father, Brian Kaufman, the timing made an already meaningful afternoon even more emotional.
“We obviously wish that Eddie was still here with us and battling cancer,” Brian said. “It’s been an emotional fall for us. Eddie passed away about this time last year, so to have this coincide with some of that, it’s been real emotional.”
For longtime Mid Valley head coach and Eddie’s swing coach, Scotty McAlarney, the idea of honoring him had been developing for almost a year.
“Once Eddie passed in October, the wheels were already in motion to start doing something how we were going to honor Eddie,” McAlarney said.
Mid Valley dedicated its entire 2026 season to Kaufman, with the Spartans wearing specially designed golf shirts and quarter-zips in his memory.
But to McAlarney, Eddie was never simply another golfer who came through his program.
He watched him grow up.
Kaufman spent six years as a student at McAlarney’s golf academy and was around the Mid Valley program even before he was old enough to become a varsity player. He eventually became a four-year starter, team captain, Mid Valley’s No. 1 golfer and a Player of the Year.
“Being around him for so long, you get to know him way, way more than just a high school player,” McAlarney said.
When McAlarney thinks about Eddie today, one word stands above the rest.
Lion.
“We use the word lion to describe him,” McAlarney said. “I think that’s really the best way I can describe Eddie and the time that I was able to spend with him.”
The work nobody saw
Long before the accolades came, Brian remembers a young golfer who demanded an extraordinary amount from himself.
“When Eddie was a real young golfer, he was a perfectionist,” Brian said. “He really struggled because nobody has perfection at golf as a youngster. It takes time and years to perfect your craft, and he eventually did.”
People eventually saw the finished product on the course.
His family saw everything that came before it.
“Eddie would do stuff behind the scenes when nobody was looking to practice,” Brian said. “He would go in our basement and hit balls into a net, and he’d come upstairs and he’d have blisters on his hands.”
Brian would tell him he was doing too much.
Eddie had a simple answer.
“‘Well, I had to work something out in my swing.’”
That drive extended beyond golf.
Kaufman was also an accomplished baseball player, mastering two sports built around fundamentally different swings. Brian said there might occasionally be an adjustment period moving from one to the other, but Eddie understood the mechanics well enough to make it work.
“He was a student of all that,” Brian said. “He figured it out.”
McAlarney saw the potential early.
“This is gonna sound funny, but I saw this coming,” he said. “He was special from the get-go.”
His biggest concern might have been whether Eddie would ever actually play for Mid Valley.
McAlarney joked that as Eddie grew up, he wondered whether Scranton Prep or Holy Cross could become possibilities. There was, however, an early Mid Valley visor McAlarney gave him as a youngster.
“There’s always a way to recruit,” McAlarney joked.
Eddie stayed home.
And eventually the young golfer McAlarney had watched for years developed into one of the best players in Mid Valley history.
“He was a stud,” McAlarney said.
Brian watched the same progression as a father.
“He became a very accomplished golfer his sophomore, junior and senior year here at Mid Valley,” he said. “He was the captain and had a great run as the captain of the team and the number one player.”
His “Fairy Golf Mother”
Golf was also something Eddie shared deeply with his family.
His grandparents, Carol and Walter Kaufman, were a major part of that journey, taking him south on vacations, helping get him to lessons and making sure he had plenty of opportunities and equipment to pursue the game he loved.
Carol became what the family jokingly called Eddie’s “Fairy Golf Mother.”
She would play golf with him for as long as he wanted.
And she knew a little something about the game herself.
Carol was a club champion at Elkview Country Club, a course that would eventually provide one of the family’s most special golf connections.
Eddie recorded a hole-in-one on Elkview’s seventh hole.
Carol had made an ace of her own.
One of the photographs the family holds onto isn’t simply a golfer posing beside a flagstick. It captures Eddie’s reaction to his grandmother’s accomplishment…overwhelmed with excitement for her.
For all the stories about his competitiveness and the standards he placed on himself, that moment offered another glimpse into who Eddie was.
He could celebrate someone else just as hard.
That quality carried into the teammate he became.
Before the memorial match, Brian addressed the Mid Valley and Lakeland teams and those gathered around the course, sharing stories about Eddie and the type of player and person they were there to remember.
The awards mattered.
The scores mattered.
But they were never the entire story.
From #TeamEddieK to a lasting legacy
Perhaps the most powerful part of Eddie’s story now reaches far beyond golf.
During his cancer battle, the community rallied around the #TeamEddieK movement as the search for a potential donor match grew.
Approximately 5,000 people swabbed during that effort.
Those people came forward hoping one of them could provide the match Eddie needed.
His family ultimately experienced the heartbreak of losing him.
But something extraordinary came from the movement created during his fight.
Of those approximately 5,000 people who swabbed, the family later learned that eight were identified as potential matches for other patients.
It is a remarkable part of Eddie’s legacy.
Thousands came together hoping to save one young man. Through that effort, eight people were identified with the potential to help someone else facing a similar need.
What began as a community trying desperately to help Eddie now carries the possibility that his fight changed the trajectory of other lives.
Following his passing, that mission continued with the creation of the Live for Me Foundation, established to honor Eddie’s life, character and legacy.
It means his story is continuing through more than memories.
More than photographs.
More than golf.
And more than one memorial match.
As Brian said following Wednesday’s event, “Hopefully we have some more good stories to come through the foundation.”
There already are.
Lakeland remains unbeaten
Once the golfers stepped to the tee, there was still a meaningful league match to play.
Lakeland continued its unbeaten season with the victory, improving to 11-0, while Mid Valley moved to 8-3.
The Chiefs were led by Pisarcik, who carded the low round of the match with a 31. Pantzar followed with a 35, Rosenkrans shot 36 and Sokoloski added a 38, while Babarsky and Stephens each finished with 40s.
Scanlon led Mid Valley with a 34, followed by Burns at 39, Zuraski at 41 and Moore and Perna at 42. Merrifield also competed for the Spartans.
Lakeland left the course still perfect.
But on this afternoon, the numbers on the scorecard were only part of what mattered.
An annual tradition begins
The first Eddie Kaufman Memorial Match will not be the last.
McAlarney said the event will become an annual tradition, with the possibility of changing opponents and expanding what the program does to celebrate Eddie each season.
“This is our first,” McAlarney said. “It will definitely be an annual thing.”
Then he added a line that seemed fitting for the player everyone had gathered to remember.
“We’ll jazz it up for Eddie.”
And every year it returns, another group of golfers will hear his name.
They’ll hear about the four-year starter and captain.
The Player of the Year.
The kid who hit balls into a basement net until his hands blistered because there was still something in his swing he wanted to solve.
They’ll hear about Carol and Walter, the golf trips and lessons, and two holes-in-one at Elkview.
They’ll hear about the grandson whose reaction to his grandmother’s ace said as much about him as any trophy ever could.
They’ll hear about a lion.
And they’ll hear how approximately 5,000 people swabbed because a community wanted to help save Eddie Kaufman and how eight potential donor matches for others emerged from that effort.
Years from now, people may not remember every score from September 16, 2026.
They’ll remember why they played.
Because Eddie Kaufman is still part of Mid Valley golf.
And through his family, his coaches, the Live for Me Foundation and everyone continuing to carry his name forward, his story is still being written.
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