Lost but Not Forgotten
Dear Dad - This one’s for you.
"For the last 39 years, my dad was a polarizing figure in my life - a real hero and role model. With his passing, he has left our family with the greatest gift: the honor of his name. And for that, we are forever grateful."
Those were the last words of my eulogy for Joel M. Androphy. My father. My best friend. The man I looked up to every single day of my life. The man who handed me a golf club when I was 8 years old and changed the course of my life without either of us knowing it.
I have thought a lot about what to say here. How to capture a man like my dad in a few paragraphs. The truth is, you can’t. But I want to try - because he deserves it, and because the fight we are in right now, the fight against ALS, deserves everything we can give it.
My dad spent over four decades as one of the most accomplished trial lawyers in America. He championed whistleblowers. He took on pharmaceutical giants. He walked into courtrooms where the odds were stacked against him and found a way to win. His reputation in the legal community and in Houston was something I am still discovering, even now. After his diagnosis, the outpouring was overwhelming. People I had never met reached out to tell me how my dad had changed their life - a client he had gone to the mat for, a young lawyer he had taken under his wing, someone he had defended when no one else would. Every call was a new story. Every story made me prouder to carry his name.
He was more than just a father to me. He was significant to a great many people. And he carried that significance quietly, without fanfare, because that was just who he was.
But ask me about my dad and I don't start with the courtroom. I start on the first tee.
He introduced me to golf when I was 8 and we were immediately hooked. It became our thing in a way that is hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it. Every Saturday and Sunday we were out there - 18 holes in the morning, a lesson with our instructor Kevin Kirk at noon, then 18 more in the afternoon. Thirty-six holes, every weekend. For years. It was never a burden. It was the best part of the week, every week.
We chased the top 100 golf courses in America together, fitting tee times around his trials and my work schedule, flying to places just to play a round that neither of us would ever forget - Winged Foot, Friars Head, Pebble Beach, Oakmont and many more. Those trips were ours. It was just a father and a son with nothing to do but walk the fairway and talk. Golf was never really about golf. It was about him and I, and the thing we built together over 30 years that I will never be able to fully name but will never stop feeling.
Off the course, we pushed each other in other arenas too. We spent five years training together at Young Brothers Tae-Kwon-Do, side by side, until we both earned our black belts. That was my dad. He never did anything halfway. He was the truest definition of grit I have ever known - in the dojo, in the courtroom, and on the back nine.
ALS does not negotiate. It does not make exceptions for great people. It took my father in 2023, and in the years before it did, it stripped things away from him one by one - until it took the thing I had not let myself imagine losing. His ability to walk a course. To stand on a tee box. To play the game that had been ours for as long as I could remember. I watched ALS take everything from him - faster than any of us were ready for. What that disease does to a man like my dad, a man built on strength and fight, is something I will never have the right words for. It didn’t just take his body. It took his world.
For 39 years, he was my hero. Losing him left a hole that nothing will ever fill. But it also left me with a name I am proud to carry, and two boys of my own - Jayden and Cooper - who I hope one day feel about me the way I felt about him. That is the inheritance my dad gave me. Not just the memories, not just the rounds, but a standard to live up to. Every time I step on a course now, I feel him there. And I play like it.
I am playing in the ALS 100 because my father deserves to have people in his corner the way he spent his life being in everyone else’s. The ALS 100 brings together elite golfers who play 100 holes in a single day - an act of endurance and commitment that I think my dad would have deeply respected. He understood what it cost to push through when things were hard. I am doing this for him. I am doing this so that another family gets more time than we did.
The money raised goes directly to research - to the scientists working to turn ALS from a death sentence into something treatable. To the families who are right now in the middle of what my family went through. To the possibility of more time.
Please give today. Give for Joel. Give for the fathers and mothers and best friends who deserve more Saturday mornings. Give for the round that hasn't been played yet.
He gave everything he had to the people in his life. The least we can do is give a little back.
P.S. Not only were you a great role model, but you had an impeccable fashion sense. From bright colored shirts and pants, to rows of custom suits, you always left the house looking your best!
Sincerely,
Your Son (Daniel Androphy)