Los Angeles Times - 25.08.2019

A16 SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2019 S LATIMES.COM

night when a decimated
mountain community and
its beloved football team
came together for one more
roaring proclamation of life.
As Coach Rick Prinz was
about to give his celebratory
speech on the field to the
Bobcats after their 42-
victory over Williams, he
noticed some townsfolk
lingering on the edge of their
group. They were among
the 5,000 who had crammed
together to witness the first
sporting event at the school
since the Nov. 8 Camp fire
destroyed their city and
caused 86 deaths. They had
come not only for the foot-
ball, but for the family, to
reunite with displaced
neighbors, to rediscover
themselves among streets
of burned metal and
stacked rubble, to bond
together over their dreams
to rebuild.
They arrived four hours
early, sat under a broiling
sun, cheered deep into the
night, and didn’t want to
leave, so when Prinz saw
them standing along with
family and friends outside
his postgame meeting, he
had an idea. He brought his
kids over to the crowd to
create a most unusual, yet
perfectly fitting, giant group
hug.
“We’re going to cheer
together!” Prinz screamed,
and so they did, team and
town, everyone forming a
big circle, embracing and
leaping and waving their
fists into the air, chanting
Paradise’s trademark acro-
nym.
“CMF! ... CMF!! .. .CMF!”
they shouted, again and
again.
It stands for “Crazy
Mountain Folk,” a wonder-
fully fitting moniker on a
night when a city rallied
around a group of teenagers
and chose life.
“Can you feel it?” said
assistant coach Andy Hop-
per, nodding at the sweaty
hugs that followed the
shouting. “Tonight, the
healing began.”
The start of the game felt
like Paradise itself these
days, comfortingly familiar
yet painfully different.
The helmeted and
padded Bobcats took the
field by marching down
through the bleachers to
their traditional entrance
song that now holds new
meaning.
“Sooner or later, God’ll
cut you down,” crooned
Johnny Cash from a CD
being played over the Om
Wraith Field loudspeakers.
“Sooner or later, God’ll cut
you down.”
The team was being led
by last year’s seniors whose
championship-hopeful
season was cut short by the
fires. They were grateful to
do it. They needed to do it.
“Nine months ago some-
thing was stripped from us
... we never got our last
game,” said former lineman
Ezra Gonzales. “This is
closure.”
Their march also in-
cluded what could be a new
fire-related tradition. When
passing in front of the press
box, the Bobcats loudly

punched a new metal

plaque memorializing one of

the worst moments of their

young lives.

“C.M.F. 11-8-2018” read the

sign, and the kids saw it and

fists flew.

“I felt like hitting it was

the right thing to do,” said

quarterback Danny Betten-

court. “We’re always going

to remember it, but we’re

also trying to move past it to

create new memories.”

The march took the

Bobcats through a sea of

fans filling the ancient Om

Wraith Field bleachers and

lining the end zones, folks

who were also experiencing

their own new football nor-

mal.

Because the fire de-

stroyed many of the trees

that once covered the field

in shade, the sun had free

rein to pound the bleachers

amid 95-degree heat, lead-

ing to at least four people

being treated for heat ex-

haustion.

The stadium restrooms

were still suffering from

residual fire damage, so

everyone lined up for a row

of portable toilets.

Even the stadium enter-

tainment had taken a hit.

The mighty Paradise pep

band numbers only 19 musi-

cians, about half of its previ-

ous size. They have three

tubas but just one trumpet,

and one of the drummers is

now longtime music teacher

Bob Schofield.

“We will forge ahead,”

Schofield said with a weary

smile.

That was the attitude

adopted by the crowd when

the sound system shut

down while a couple of stu-

dents were singing the

national anthem. The fans

picked up the tune and

finished crooning the an-

them themselves.

“This day is bigger than

football, it’s about our com-

munity,” said principal Jeff

Marcus, who came out of

retirement to run the school

even after the fire destroyed

his home and led him to live

in a converted boathouse on

a rice farm outside nearby

Chico. “It’s a time of healing,

reuniting, moving forward

together.”

What may have been the

biggest event in the 65-year

history of the school actu-

ally began a day earlier,

when the football team

finished its preparations

with a passionate reminder

of their mission.

The Bobcats varsity

team has just 35 players,

down from 56 last year.

Nearly all of them lost their

homes in the fire. Many of

them had made miraculous

escapes down the moun-

tain. None of them were in

permanent housing when

they aimlessly began this

comeback out of the

school’s temporary ware-

house facility at the Chico

airport last spring. Now on

the verge of their first offi-

cial step, Prinz gathered

them together to remember

how this journey began.

“We started back last

January, down in Chico, at

the airport, we had no facili-

ties, we didn’t even have a

football ... we went out on

the gravel field to run plays,

remember?” he told them as

they knelt together on the

field Thursday night. “That

was a tough time because, in

my heart, I didn’t even know

if we would have a football

team. ... I didn’t know if I’d

have a job next year at Para-

dise High School ... it was

tough.”

He paused, and contin-

ued, “But here’s what we did

have ... we had each other...

and we just started moving

forward ... you guys faced so

much adversity to get to this

first game ... you have sacri-

ficed to get to this first game

...you’ve worked your butts

off to get to this first game ...

but to get to this first game

is not our goal, is it? ...

What’s our goal? ... To win

the game!”

The players ended their

preparation with one public

request of the visiting

Williams team, a tiny school

which was given $5,000 in

equipment from Under

Armour for agreeing to

make the 90-minute drive

north to play the suppos-

edly depleted Bobcats.

“I don’t want no sympa-

thy,” said lineman Elijah

Gould. “I want them to

come to take off our heads

because that’s what we’re

coming to do.”

A day later, after Friday

classes ended, instead of

returning home to rest, the

players just stayed at

school, spending their final

hours before the first game

together in the drama room.

Because the fire has caused

them to be relocated to so

many different and even

distant cities, Prinz didn’t

trust the logistics of any-

body leaving campus.

Meanwhile, outside, four

hours before the game, two

hours before the junior

varsity game, fans were

already lining up to pay six

bucks a seat to rediscover

their city again.

The first fan was Michael

Weldon, a postal worker

who came so early because

he just wanted to park him-

self in a prime spot for nor-

mality. He lost everything in

the fire, so his Toyota truck

was new, the clothes on his

back were new. His son,

Ben, is a defensive back and

everything the kid owns is

also new.

The only thing that isn’t

new is Bobcat football, and

that is why Weldon showed

up simply to stand alone in

the parking lot.

“This game will be the

most important game in our

lives,” he said. “This game

will be everything.”

An impromptu tailgater

arrived soon thereafter,

setting up in an adjoining

vacant lot where a church

once stood. Matt Madden, a

Chico police officer who

used to coach in Paradise,

threw up a tent and fired up

a grill and waited for some-

body to show up. He didn’t

know if anybody would show

up. It turns out everybody

showed up, and soon he was

surrounded in long-lost

embraces.

“My house survived but

everyone around me is gone,

all my friends gone, nobody

is left, and to see this today

...” Madden said through

tears. “Everyone coming

back now, believing this can

be a town again, it’s really

something.”

Many fans found it diffi-

cult to experience this mo-

ment without crying. Some

cried when they first spot-

ted the team on the field.

Others cried when they saw

displaced friends in the

stands. At least one woman

cried when she saw just a

glimpse of the field, with

lines and goalposts and life.

The high school was one of

the few Paradise structures

that survived the blaze.

”People are finally com-

ing home,” said Woody

Culleton, former mayor,

who began softly weeping by

the concession stand. “We

lost our community and

today we’re getting it back.”

After the teams had

marched to the field for the

start of the game, after a

moment of silence for the

fire victims it was their turn

to show their feelings, with

Hopper breaking down in

tears during the national

anthem.

“I was thinking, we lost

everything, but maybe now

we found it again,” he said.

Exhausted by hype,

burdened by the responsi-

bility, the players nonethe-

less somehow also found the

energy to dominate.

“Don’t come to the

mountain!’’ they chanted

before the game, and then

they proved it to the smaller

Yellowjackets by knocking

them all over the field.

The first touchdown by

the nervous-stomached

Hartley came after he

smashed over a Williams

defender at the end of an

11-yard run.

“All I saw was the end

zone,” he said afterward,

sweat streaking his char-

coal-stained face beneath

his American flag ban-

danna.

The second touchdown

came on a 64-yard pass play

that Cowan finished by

wickedly throwing off a

Williams defender before

bouncing into the end zone.

“I thought, ‘There was no

way he is going to keep me

from scoring,’ ” Cowan said.

The Bobcats led 21-0 at

the end of the first quarter,

35-0 at halftime, and rolled

from there. By the time it

mercifully ended, Williams

coach Jeff Lemus just

shrugged.

“It was just a hard situa-

tion,” Lemus said. “There

was a lot of emotion out

there.”

Before the game, it was

announced that his school

had donated a week of lunch

money to Paradise for their

rebuilding efforts. The

Paradise players thanked

them during the postgame

handshake line, then ran off

to celebrate the win.

Well, they all didn’t run.

Several of them hobbled

away with cramps, with

tight end Silas Carter drop-

ping to the ground in front

of his dancing teammates

while screaming in pain.

“They literally gave

everything for this night,”

Prinz said.

Their reward was noted

by assistant coach Nino

Pinocchio, who directed the

team to stare into the

stands. The players curi-

ously turned their heads,

then nodded in understand-

ing.

“Look around you,

there’s a helluva lot of smil-

ing faces up there!” Pino-

cchio screamed. “You did

that! You did that!”

It was a night of smiles,

and resilience, and one

incredible sunset.

In the middle of the

game, through the spaces

that were once occupied by

trees, the field was lighted

with the incredible setting of

the sun. It was such a deep

tint of golden orange, it

almost looked like a fire. On

this night, though, thoughts

of destruction were re-

placed with those of beauty.

It was enough to bring

the booming Hopper to a

whisper.

“We’re going to create

something precious, some-

thing that people for gen-

erations to come will be able

to tell the story about,”

Hopper said. “One team.

One family. One town.”

One glorious night.

This is the third in a series of

columns by Bill Plaschke on

the Paradise High football

team that will run over the

course of the season. The

first two columns in the

series can be read at

latimes.com/sports.

PARADISE football players close ranks as they prepare to take on Williams High in the opener Friday night. It was the school’s first game since last fall’s Camp fire.

Photographs byWally SkalijLos Angeles Times

Football keeps Paradise grounded

ASSISTANT COACHAndy Hopper cries as he hugs running back Tyler Harrison before Friday’s season

opener against Williams. “Tonight, the healing began,” Hopper says before the game. Paradise won 42-0.

[Plaschke, from A1]