BROOMFIELD – Among the challenges any baseball team will encounter during the course of a season, few will rival the one faced by Coach Chadd Morrison’s Thunder Rebels this year.

One year after the death of his teenage son, Morrison decided to continue to coach his son’s team — fulfilling a pact the two made shortly before Tyler Morrison passed away due to an inoperable brain tumor.

“[Tyler] asked me to keep coaching, and he asked me to keep an eye on his friends. That’s really why I’m here you know,” Chadd Morrison said.

He won’t lie though. It was a tough season.

“There were some days I doubt I was able to live up to my end of the bargain,” he said.

Tyler Morrison died last year shortly after doctors found a tumor growing in his brain stem. His mother, who remained as the team’s manager, said the choice to stay was a relatively simple one.

“Chadd and I, we talked, and we made a pact that we’re going to stick with these kids who have been with us since they were 10 and see it through [until they got to high school],” Heather Morrison said.

Tyler’s love of baseball developed a little later than Chadd, an avid baseball fan, might have preferred. Tyler initially played football, but at the age of 10 decided to switch over to baseball.

The first hit of his life scored three on Sept. 11, 2010.

“That was just a cool day,” Chadd said.

Tyler played a lot of positions on the team his dad coached. His sister Tyler said he was just a natural, and when he was finally diagnosed, Kelsey said Tyler carried himself extremely well for his young age.

“He didn’t want to tell anybody because he didn’t want anyone to give him that special treatment. He didn’t feel like he needed that special treatment,” Kelsey said.

This year, during a ceremony his family admits he probably would have shunned, the Broomfield City Council named the home dugout at Al Lange Field after Tyler.

As Chadd and Heather’s team unveiled the sign on a stormy day in Broomfield, Chadd smiled.

“I couldn’t be more proud of the boys I have raised,” he told them.

Near the end of the season, Chadd told his team why he decided to stay. One by one, he pointed out members of the team and told them why each one of them reminded him of Tyler.

“I told all of you guys at the beginning of the season that the reason I’m here is because of you,” he said.

“Jackson, the way that all you want to do is win,” he said. “Or the way AJ catches behind the plate. Or the way Ethan can play darn near everywhere.”

“Every one of you, in some way, shape or form reminds me of Tyler,” he added.

(KUSA-TV © 2015 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)