By Paul Suellentrop
 

Carl Hall's family gathered around the phone to tell the ostrich joke, the stories about buying Christmas presents 11 months early and buying Ange ou Demon perfume as an anniversary gift for Stacey, even after they swore no gifts.
 
"He loved it when the house was very full and loud," said Madison Hall, one of his three daughters. "He would prefer to have all of us live here, all of the time."
 
Those stories are how Carl Hall would want people to remember him. He was the second youngest in a family of 12. Hall and wife Stacey have four children and a grandchild.
 
"He was a really big family guy and always had the right words for every situation," said Mclaine Hall, the youngest daughter. "He was everything."
 
Hall, 53, died Sunday from massive organ failure. In 2010, a car accident paralyzed him from the neck down. He lived the past 14 years in a three-story, wheelchair-accessible home in west Wichita built for the "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" television show. Hall played baseball for Wichita State from 1990-94 and earned Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year honors in 1994 as an outfielder.
 
That background, family, friends, and teammates say, is why Hall grew into a relentlessly positive, giving, and caring person as an athlete, father and quadriplegic.
 
"He cared about others first and always had a joy," former Wichita State coach Gene Stephenson said. "He was a special person."
 
Teammates and coaches remember that joy at Eck Stadium. The accident didn't change Hall's attitude. He occasionally attended Shocker baseball games and the First Pitch Banquet. Everyone remembers Hall talking about his blessings, about how he refused to dwell on the past.
 
 
"His positivity, it was almost incredible," Stacey Hall said. "I don't know how he remained so positive. He didn't have a lot of independence. You would have thought he had everything."
 
Carl Hall, in his mind, did have everything with the support of family and friends.
 
Brent Kemnitz, former Shocker pitching coach and current assistant athletic director, met Hall for lunch at Pumphouse several times a year for the Thursday special on sloppy joes.
 
"He was very upbeat," Kemnitz said. "All of the things that made him so fun to be around and just a great guy never changed."
 
His sense of humor remained a constant. One former teammate posted a story on Facebook about Hall running his jersey up the flagpole before a game at Eck Stadium. When people asked about the accident and the wheelchair, Hall often spoofed them with a story about drawing the crazy ostrich to ride on ostrich night at the rodeo.
 

"Very onery," Stacey Hall said.
 
Hall loved Christmas. He regarded the other 11 months of the year as preparation time for Christmas. By February, he worried about ideas for gifts. When the children grew into adults, Carl and Stacey vowed to cut back and failed.
 
Instead, he filled their stockings with phone chargers, jumper cables and the stabby kitty keychain for self-defense. He bought chocolate and nuts at Nifty Nut House. He bought Baby Yoda toys for Madison.
 
""It was a running joke that he would give us useful gadgets that we didn't know we needed," Mclaine Hall said. "He gave me the thing to regrout my shower that I didn't know needed regrouting."
 
Hall, a football, baseball and basketball star at Campus High School, played on WSU's powerhouse teams in the 1990s and earned third-team Collegiate Baseball All-American honors in 1994. He served the role of a constant positive presence, welcoming newcomers and lifting the mood, even when he sat out 1991 with a back injury.
 
"Carl taught me at a really early stage that it was possible to be an unbelievably nice human being, and also a great competitor," pitcher Shane Dennis said. "So genuine. You could tell by the way he treated you that he meant what he said, and everything was ultra-positive all the time."
 
First baseman Jason White transferred to WSU before the 1991 season. He met Hall in the summer of 1990.
 
"He was the only guy I knew my first day of school, and within a week or two his mom and dad (John and Louise) invited me over for dinner," White said. "They wanted me to feel at home. The guy was infectious. You wanted to be around him."
 
In 2014, the best Shockers in practice wore a red shirt with Hall's No. 26 on the back. The players entrance to Eck Stadium's office and lockers, opened in 2020, is named after Hall.
 
He is, everyone at Wichita State knows, the kind of person coaches want the Shockers to be around.
 
Paul Suellentrop writes about Wichita State athletics for university Strategic Communications. Story suggestion? Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.