Cards’ McLaughlin aids special needs children in community

ST. LOUIS — The inspiration came around 15 years ago while driving around town making sales calls. Dan McLaughlin, early in his tenure as the Cardinals’ primary television play-by-play voice, was sitting alongside a Fox Sports Midwest colleague who was fighting to hold back tears.

The man explained how his young daughter, Caroline, required special needs services that the family feared it could not fully afford. It was a reality that McLaughlin refused to accept, and one he boldly believed he could change.

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“Ever since I was little, I’ve always had a real soft spot for kids who have a disability,” McLaughlin said. “That’s especially true now as a parent of four, but even before I had kids I always felt I was really lucky. I’m healthy. I wanted to do something.”

And so McLaughlin showed up at the door of the Special Education Foundation, not to ask how he could help, but to inform them of what he already decided he would do. It would be a golf tournament, McLaughlin explained. He would plan it. He would secure the sponsors. And he would use his platform as a means for promotion.

His only request was that every dollar raised through the event be directed back to …

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