The Schillings: A Giving Family Behind That Winning Red Sox Pitch

By Deirdre Wilson

Someday soon, Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, his wife, Shonda, and their four kids want to take a Duck Tour of Boston. They want to walk down the street and not be the subject of awe and autographs. They want people to know them as a family.

But that’s a tall order this summer. Schilling is one of the best pitchers in the American League, a six-time All Star, and an athlete who easily won the hearts of Boston sports fans after a 2003 trade with the Arizona Diamondbacks brought him to New England.

Schilling has already done what most Red Sox fans have not yet lived to see: he helped clinch a World Series win (for the Diamondbacks in 2001) over the New York Yankees, no less!

That, combined with his winning record on the mound this season, has elevated Schilling to V.I.P. status in Boston, a city that takes its sports teams – especially baseball – very seriously. And that is precisely why the Schilling family may have a hard time convincing Massachusetts that they’re just like everyone else.
But switch gears a bit, and talk to Curt and Shonda Schilling as parents trying to raise four kids under the age of 10; as adults juggling their family lives with demanding work lives; as homeowners doing laundry on their days off. Except for his ability to throw a baseball, Curt insists, the Schillings are “just like everyone else.”

They’re also terrific role models. Despite living the high life as a celebrated professional athlete, Curt Schilling is well-known for his work ethic, his love for his family and the dedication he and Shonda have for fighting two life-threatening illnesses – Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and melanoma. The first is a disease the couple became interested in while searching for a way to give back to the community; the Schillings have helped The ALS Association raise more than $4 million to promote awareness of and help find a cure for what is better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The second is a cancer that Shonda herself battled; she and Curt created the SHADE Foundation of America to raise awareness of skin cancer and the danger of too much exposure to the sun.

At the end of the day, though, what these two parents want most are for their kids to grow up with a strong sense of compassion, tolerance and understanding of the world around them. Shonda, 36, wants her children to learn to “respect other people; take care of other people ... I would be heartbroken if someone told me my kids were mean to other kids.”

Curt, 37, puts it simply: “I want my kids to be good people.”