Top > Sport > 2004 > September > 2004-09-21

Courage in the face of tragedy

Bill Marsh was determined to be home early Monday night, to be certain he tucked in his daughters, Makenna and Kylee, and son Luke when it was time for bed.

Typically, at that hour, Marsh and his Eastside Catholic football coaches and players would have been watching game film, reviewing what the Crusaders had done in their game the previous weekend and starting to plan for their next opponent.

Instead, on Monday, Marsh met briefly with his players, then dismissed them.

``I told them to go home to be with their families,`` Marsh said. ``When something like this happens, it makes you appreciate your family and friends.``

What happened, what so shook Marsh and his coaches and players -- in fact, the entire Eastside Catholic family -- was the unexpected loss of one of their own.

Sophomore Brian Hill, 16, a backup wide receiver and one of the team`s most enthusiastic and popular players, died Saturday in a car wreck near Issaquah. A Newport High student, John Kelley, also was killed in the crash. Another Newport student survived.

Hill`s death is the second this month of a high school football player. Tyee High sophomore DeShawn Smith died several days after suffering head injuries in a helmet-to-helmet collision during a Sept. 4 game at Foster High.

The accident that killed Hill occurred just hours before Eastside Catholic was scheduled to play a home game against Sunnyside at Lake Washington High School. The Crusaders had lost their first two games of the season, but Marsh was confident their chances to win this game were good.

The Crusaders don`t have their own stadium, so they often play on Saturday. Marsh, in his sixth season as Eastside Catholic head coach, likes to stick to a routine: He doubles as the school`s athletic director the rest of the week, but not on game day. On those days, he focuses on football.

One thing Marsh never does on game days is check the voicemail on the athletic department phone, but, for reasons he can`t explain, he listened his messages on Saturday. There was one, from his wife, Jeni. There was an urgency in her voice. Call me, she said.

Fearing that something might have happened to one of his children, Marsh phoned home. Jeni told him she`d heard that an Eastside Catholic student had been killed earlier in the day in a car crash. She had a nagging suspicion that it was one of his players. He told her he`d check.

As the players boarded the bus for the 7 o`clock game, Marsh took a head count. One player, Hill, was missing. Marsh refused to assume the worst. There had to be a logical explanation, he told himself as he climbed aboard the team bus. He`d sort things out once he got to the stadium.

But there was no news, and by halftime, Marsh began to fear that Hill had, indeed, been the student involved in the accident. He kept his thoughts to himself, however, not wanting to unnecessarily worry his players. The Crusaders trailed 7-0 at halftime, but they rallied with two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, including one with 50 seconds remaining, to post a 14-7 victory.

As his jubilant players rushed to the center of the field, Marsh looked around to find Jeni, who attends every game and greets him with a hug, win or lose. He saw her walking toward him, accompanied by Eastside Catholic vice-principal Jeff Rodenburg. Marsh braced himself for bad news.

It was a moment Jeni Marsh said she is unlikely to forget.

``(Bill) had a blank look on his face, and he just nodded and said he understood,`` she said. ``But you could see his chest drop. Then, he bent over, turned away from the middle of the field, and just lost it.``

Not wanting his players to see him crying, Marsh quickly dried his eyes. When he joined his players at midfield, they wanted him to lead them in the school fight song, as he did after every victory. He sang, but his heart wasn`t in it. As he made his way to the bus, fans reached out to congratulate him. He thanked them, but his heart wasn`t in that, either. Marsh also drives the team bus. As his coaches and players celebrated behind him, he quietly cried on the 20-minute ride back to the school.

``It was tough,`` he recalled. ``I knew I was about to break 50 hearts.``

But Marsh wasn`t certain how -- or if -- he would break the news to his players right then. That would be a lot for them to deal with at that hour of the night. As the players filed into the locker room, he instructed them to get dressed but not to leave the school. He then met with Eastside Catholic principal Greg Marsh (no relation), president Jim Kubacki and Father Bill Heric, the school chaplain. The four agreed that it was best if Marsh, who was closer to the players than anyone else, told the team. All of them would remain at the school -- all night, if necessary -- to help the players begin to work through the grieving process.

Marsh first told his coaches, who were stunned. Eastside Catholic coaches are a veteran group, with each having experience at other schools. None had ever had a player die during the season. They had no advice to offer him in terms of how to break the news to the players. It would be unlike any talk he`d given to a team before.

The players had gathered on bleachers in the school gymnasium, and, as Marsh walked toward them, they could see in his face that he had bad news. Most anticipated that he had suffered some kind of personal tragedy. He decided to waste no words, telling them simply that their teammate was dead.

``A lot of heads went into hands at that moment,`` he said. ``It was just the utter shock and disbelief. I told them that I would be there for them, that I loved every one of them. I told them it was OK to cry and share their feelings, that we would cry it out as a group. (But) it was really, really tough.``

The team spent some time in silence, followed by a lot of tears and a lot of talking. Marsh, his coaches and school administrators stayed until the last player headed home or was picked up by a parent.

``I wanted them to know they could rely on the coaches,`` he said.

The players had the same idea in mind. At one point, junior Matt Carmody pulled Jeni Marsh aside to tell her that, as much as he understood that the head coach was there to help them get through a difficult time, the players were there to support him in the same way.

``Bill loves those kids, and he has so much compassion,`` she said. ``They respond to him in the same way.``

Marsh has believed since the day he arrived at Eastside Catholic as a teacher 11 years ago that the school is a special place. There is, he said, an electricity and enthusiasm present in the hallways and classrooms that make it fun to come to work every day. It is a spirit embodied by the football team, which has taken on several community service projects, including one in which they have delivered dinner to a Bellevue fire department station once a week since the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., in 2001. Coincidentally, a unit from that Bellevue station was the first to arrive Saturday at the accident scene.

Marsh also believes that participation in athletics provides opportunities for youngsters to gain important life lessons. After what he saw last weekend and early this week from his players in the face of tragedy, he is convinced more than ever about that.

The players organized a vigil at the high school. They will honor Hill`s memory by wearing his initials on their helmets and his number, 72, on wristbands, and they suggested to Marsh that Hill`s jersey number be retired later this season. And they insisted that they play Friday`s scheduled game at Ingraham, because they are convinced that that was what Hill, who stood out along the Crusaders` sideline because he was the team`s biggest cheerleader, would have wanted them to do.

``As much as the coaches tried to be there for them, they were the ones who were helping us to cope,`` Marsh said. ``It has been phenomenal to watch the past few days. It has been amazing to watch them take charge. They have helped to rally the community. They epitomize all you want a program to be.