Graybill Daniel Jr.

News Obituary Article

STOCKBRIDGE: Graybill Daniel Jr., 61, led softball group

By HOLLY CRENSHAW

Graybill Daniel was hit so hard in a high school football game that he lost a kidney at 17. The blow did nothing to dampen his love of sports --- only sent it spiraling off in a different direction.

"Softball pretty much became his life," said his son Tony Daniel of Newnan. "Giving back to the community was definitely a part of it. But if we had told him he couldn't have done softball, I don't know what he would have done."

Hiram Graybill Daniel Jr., 61, of Stockbridge died Friday at Emory Crawford Long Hospital after a car accident in Spalding County. The body was cremated. The memorial service is 2 p.m. today at McKoon Funeral Home.

He was en route to umpire a college softball tournament in Tallahassee when his car was rear-ended.

The Millen native was commissioner of the Metro Atlanta Amateur Softball Association, a position he had held since 1988. He rose through local softball's ranks as a coach and umpire before taking on the top job, which including overseeing team registrations; holding tournaments; putting on clinics for coaches, players and umpires; drumming up support for amateur softball and guiding it through a huge growth spurt.

"He was basically the No. 1 person in the metro Atlanta counties as far as softball was concerned," said umpire Al Dattolo of Jackson.

"In the world of softball, an ASA commissioner is a pretty powerful person, but Graybill never thought he was any better than anybody else. He didn't use his position to try to demean people. He was an umpire's best friend and he was one of us, even when he became the commissioner. That didn't change him at all."

For 36 years, his day job was working as an epidemiologist for the Georgia Department of Community Health, combatting sexually transmitted diseases. When he retired in the late '90s, he became a frequent substitute teacher at Morrow Middle School.

Despite his master's degree from the University of Georgia, Mr. Daniel held season tickets to Georgia Tech's football games for 30 years. He also donated blood at every opportunity --- perhaps, his son said, as a form of payback for his kidney surgery.

"Graybill had an incredible compassion for people," said the Rev. Anthony Mann of Hampton, who worked on his staff for seven years. "I could tell story after story of how he tried to help me progress as an umpire by taking less for himself and giving me opportunities he wanted me to have."

"Umpires are a strange breed, but ego wasn't important to Graybill," he said. "Even the best umpires spend a lot of time being yelled at, and I'm not saying it never bothered him. But he never took it personally. He was driven more by the love of the sport."

Survivors include another son, Hiram Graybill "Skip" Daniel III of Stockbridge; a sister, June Gunn of Millen; and three grandchildren.

© 2005 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution