Families forged by fire
Cardinal Newman players build bonds, look to rebuild futures after season ends
Their extraordinary journey started with the most destructive wildfire in California history and ended on a rain-soaked football field, after a memorable North Coast Section championship game.
Kyle Carinalli and his Cardinal Newman-Santa Rosa teammates milled around for several minutes last Saturday night, soggy but reluctant to depart. They survived the Tubbs Fire, which destroyed half their campus, and then embarked on a spirited, stirring playoff run. And now it was over. Carinalli, one of five Cardinal Newman players who lost his family home in the fire, struggled to fight off tears. Fifty-four days earlier, he and his mom, Heather, watched their house burn down in the early-morning
hours of Oct. 9.
Now he stood on the field at Rancho Cotate High in Rohnert Park, dripping with sweat and exhausted — wearing No. 23 because his white No. 5 jersey was lost in the fire — while trying to digest his team’s dramatic 59-56 loss to Marin Catholic-Kentfield.
“Once it’s all over and you realize this is your last high school football game ... ” Carinalli said, pausing to compose himself. “That’s something else.”
Football was not on the minds of Cardinal Newman players on Oct. 9.
Carinalli (a senior wide receiver), quarterback Beau Barrington, wide receiver Nikko Kitchen, safety Nick George and defensive lineman Sean Stoesser all lost their houses when the fire roared through Santa Rosa. Twenty classrooms, the library and main administration building burned to the ground at Cardinal Newman. The baseball field was ruined.
So when the Cardinals convened at El Molino High in Forestville for their first post-fire practice on Oct. 16, they were understandably “a little unfocused,” as running back Tanner Mendoza put it. Their passion for the game wavered.
But the players soon came to embrace the resumption of their season as a vital slice of normalcy. They found refuge on the field with their teammates, pursuing a common goal.
“It’s relief, joy, escape — all those things,” Kitchen said. “It’s just getting back to what we love. We love to play.”
Kitchen described his team as tight-knit, with a strong bond before the fire. This transcended grade level: Seniors, juniors and sophomores (even a few freshmen) all got along well, intent on upholding Cardinal Newman’s status as a traditional North Bay football power.
Still, the fire offered uncharted real-life territory, capriciously impacting families in different ways. Those five players suddenly had no home. Others, such as junior wide receiver Chauncey LeBerthon, evacuated for a week and then returned home.
That was a bit unsettling for Chauncey’s mom, Leticia LeBerthon.
“It’s hard to know how to feel when you go home, when so many people you know didn’t get to go home,” Leticia said, wearing a white “Newman Strong” T-shirt at one playoff game.
The bond within the football community helped. Leticia LeBerthon characterized her son as a stereotypically silent, brooding teenage boy. He’s not open with his emotions, she said, so she’s not entirely sure how the fire affected him.
“But I know these boys mean the world to him,” she said of his teammates.
Together, they navigated an unusual road. Cardinal Newman canceled classes from Oct. 9 through Oct. 23, as Principal Graham Rutherford and other school officials scrambled to organize their new reality without a campus. They offered online instruction the week of Oct. 16, so students could remain engaged.
Then, on Oct. 24, classes resumed at four parishes in the area — one in Windsor, one in West Santa Rosa, one in Rohnert Park and one in Cotati. Students were separated by grade level; the seniors, for instance, meet each day at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Cotati.
It forced students and teachers to adjust their routines, but Rutherford called it a workable solution. At least they got into a rhythm and routine, with set times and locations for classes.
It’s still strange, and counter to the unity every school seeks.
“You don’t see half the guys on our team at school,” Mendoza said. “Then come at 3 every day, we see them at practice. It’s kind of different, but we’re getting used to it.”
The football season also landed on hold for two weeks. Cardinal Newman’s Oct. 13 game was canceled, as were many in the Bay Area, because of poor air quality. Windsor backed out of its scheduled Oct. 20 game against Cardinal Newman, so head coach Paul Cronin arranged a rare Monday night contest against rival Rancho CotateRohnert Park on Oct. 23.
Two moms sold “Newman Strong” T-shirts out of a truck bed in the parking lot, to raise money for the school’s recovery efforts. On the field, the Cardinals played sluggishly and lost 41-28. They fell to 5-2 on the season. But they had a season again. And that mattered. “The calendar moves, like it or not,” Rutherford said. “If we couldn’t get them back together, then you’re writing off the season. That means you’re writing off a whole level of experience. It really isn’t fair if you can avoid it, because they’ve worked for this time, particularly the seniors. This is their leadership time. …
“For the school as a whole, football is one of the few rallying points for the group. It’s a place where people can come together and feel like they’re part of something.”
Stoesser, a junior defensive lineman, didn’t play much this season. But his story conveys the unsettling, unprecedented nature of his team’s odyssey.
Stoesser and his family lost their home in the
fire. They lived in their RV for about a week, found a hotel room, then finally rented a house in nearby Windsor.
Given the added stress of the damage at his school, Stoesser struggled to find his footing.
“Football really held it together for me,” he said. “… It was only when I was alone, or just hanging out, when I would start tripping on the fire and everything.”
Many of his teammates also juggled the anxiety of college applications. The fire struck at a time when several Cardinal Newman seniors were working on theirs, while also trying to balance schoolwork and football. Then came the aftermath.
Barrington, the quarterback, had started writing his college essays in October. He hopes to play baseball in college and is applying to seven schools. His teachers and counselors helped him finish the applications amid this crazy, tragic autumn.
“It’s been draining,” Barrington said. “You have no time on your hands.”
This time crunch did not ease as the Cardinals got back into the swing of their season. They beat Santa Rosa on Oct. 28, then earned the North Bay League title with a 34-27 victory over Rancho Cotate on Nov. 4.
That game — played before a large, loud crowd at Santa Rosa Junior College — marked the return of the team’s passion and full-fledged enthusiasm for football, according to Mendoza.
Cardinal Newman took off from there, beating Kennedy-Fremont 49-7 and Encinal-Alameda 49-32 in the first two rounds of the NCS Division 3 playoffs. Then the Cardinals edged Rancho Cotate in the semifinals, winning 29-28 on a late touchdown pass from Barrington to Carinalli.
That vaulted Newman into the championship game. The Cardinals led virtually the entire way, repeatedly marching downfield, but they couldn’t stop Marin Catholic and quarterback Spencer Petras. The Wildcats moved ahead late in the fourth quarter and held on to win a classic game.
So now Cardinal Newman’s players return to another new reality, without football as a daily companion.
Campus cleanup has been a slow process. The Environmental Protection Agency was involved at first, then a contractor hired by the school took over. Among the infrastructure repairs needed are the electrical system, fire alarms and wireless access.
Cardinal Newman is bringing in 22 portable classrooms, to replace those lost in the fire. The first semester ends Dec. 20, and the plan is for teachers to return to campus Jan. 8, giving them two days to prepare for the students and the start of the second semester Jan. 10.
Science, math and arts teachers will work in classrooms that survived the flames. The administration will cram into an old residence hall.
“Being back all together will make a huge difference,” said Rutherford, the principal. “It will feel more like one school.”
Rutherford has spent the past two months bouncing among the four parish sites, trying to maintain his connection with students and teachers. He’s also been a regular presence at football games, circulating in the crowd and delivering pregame prayers.
Rutherford referred to a “definite maturity” among the players since the fire. They provide more thoughtful, insightful answers when he asks how they’re doing.
“That’s a great life skill, because when things don’t go well, what are you going to do?” he said. “There’s no doubt we had plenty of things not go well. But they’re not letting it defeat them; they’re trying to make sure they don’t break under those kinds of things.”
Or, as Cronin said after last Saturday night’s game: “They’re super smart kids, they’re super tough kids, and they love one another. So I had no doubt they were going to come back (after the fire) and play hard and see their season through. I’m really proud of them.”
It seemed apt that Cardinal Newman’s comeback win in the semifinals featured second-half touchdown passes from Barrington to Carinalli and Kitchen, three players displaced by the fire. And the title game included Carinalli breaking free on several big gains, zooming away in his makeshift No. 23.
His family is living in an apartment in downtown Santa Rosa, with plans to rebuild their house in the Fountaingrove area. Already, the fire reshaped him in one profound way.
“You really see who’s there for you,” Carinalli said. “It’s going to help me. Other people will eventually go through hardships, and this made me realize I’ll need to be there for them.”