When the McFadden children went to visit their grandfather Thomas Edward McFadden in Lake Havasu City, they always knew gramps — as they affectionately call him — would be waiting with one of his famous waffle breakfasts.

“He never let us help him,” said Mariah McFadden, 22, of Ontario, of her grandfather who spent more than three decades coaching baseball at Montclair High School and who recently died in a crash in Arizona.

“He always loved to make us waffles,” she said through tears. “Even though they really weren’t that good, but he loved to make them for us.”

McFadden, 74, was killed Wednesday morning in a crash in Arizona, Ontario-Montclair School District officials said Friday.

He and another man, Laurence F. Paugh, 70, both of Lake Havasu City, died after the Ford pickup truck they were in collided with a Dodge pickup truck approximately 5 miles south of Parker, according to Today’s News-Herald.

For the McFadden clan, baseball wasn’t just a pastime and hobby, it was a way of life.

He played for and graduated from Chaffey High School, Mariah McFadden said. He then remained in the Inland Empire and coached baseball at Montclair High School until his retirement in 2003, when they retired his number, 3.

“We were all brought up with baseball,” she said. “It was his life.”

Mariah McFadden’s 16-year-old brother is following in his grandfather’s footsteps, playing the game for Damien High School in La Verne.

Mariah McFadden remembered how it was gramps who took all four grandchildren — including her cousins, Megan McFadden, 19, and her sister, Melanie McFadden, 18 — driving before they got their driver’s license.

“But it was all off-road because he didn’t want us driving on the roads,” she laughed.

Mariah McFadden was in Arizona to help her grandmother, Dee McFadden, through the loss of her husband of 52 years.

“It’s just hard right now,” the 22-year-old nurse said solemnly but then perked up as if she remembered a joke her grandfather had told her and added, “But he was great. He was one of those guys you either loved him or you hated him.”

McFadden is survived by his wife, his four grandchildren and his sons, Torry McFadden, Mariah’s father, and Martin McFadden.