MitchMash: Dealing with tragedy links Central Catholic and McClymonds

Oregon football coach Chip Kelly was at the Central Catholic (Modesto, Calif.) football practice on Tuesday, which made sense.

The team's top recruit, 6-foot-5, 235-pound tight end Johnny Mundt, has committed to the Ducks and with the way kids change their mind it's good policy to maintain close personal contact.

Doesn't Spencer Stark know it.

Central Catholic's 6-foot-2, 305-pound starting two-way lineman lost his father inexplicably on Friday. Recovering from shoulder surgery three days earlier, John Stark sustained a blood clot that led to a stroke, which led to his unexpected and truly tragic death.

Spencer Stark was at practice preparing for a Sac-Joaquin Section championship game against Escalon when he got the news. According to those close to the team, Spencer was extremely close to his father, who never missed his games.

Spencer made the very easy decision — for him anyway — to play in Saturday's 52-10 victory that advanced Central Catholic into Friday's Division IV North Regional Bowl Game against McClymonds (Oakland).

The Raiders wore "JS" stickers on their helmets throughout the game and will do so Friday. Many of them said they played for Spencer and the memory of his father. They played with great passion but still maintained composure to roll up the surprising six-touchdown victory against one of the SJS's most respected programs.

After the game, Spencer, who had held it together throughout, let loose. When Central Catholic coach Roger Canepa threw his arms around the giant junior, Spencer let out all his tears.

Well, at least for most of one day. The grieving process doesn't stop overnight.

"It honestly wasn't tough for me to play today because I knew my team had my back and I knew I can ask them for anything," Spencer told Modesto Bee reporter Brian VanderBeek after the game. "Just knowing that, I knew I could come out here and do what I needed to do to get the job done."

Canepa said the only job Spencer has at this point is to grieve and be around his teammates and family. His immediate family want him to be in whatever surroundings heal him best.

Spencer believes what would please his father most would be around his second family — the Raiders — as they chase their ultimate goal of a state bowl championship. On Saturday, his father will be laid to rest.

"Whatever Spencer wants to do — play or not play — we support 100 percent," Canepa said Wednesday. "Frankly, I wasn't expecting him to play on Saturday. But that's what he wanted to do and we certainly weren't going to deny it. All his teammates are like his brothers. I think at this point he'd rather be around them than sitting at home.

"It's a tough deal, obviously. For all the kids, the entire program and community. We all feel deeply for him and his family. They are all great people. It's not surprising Spencer is such a great kid, the nicest kid you ever want to be around.

"He's also very strong. He's handled this better than 99.9 percent of the people I know."

It helped Tuesday to have Kelly out there offering condolences to Spencer and talking to him about football and life and death. Kelly wasn't just out there to keep in contact with Mundt. He knew there was a bigger picture, a greater good then securing a recruit.

"It meant a lot to Spencer that coach Kelly spent time with him," Canepa said. "It was a very nice thing to do. It meant a lot to all of us."

Spencer is not just a big body on the line, he's a legitimate college prospect.

"That kid is solid in all ways," said Central Catholic 16-year statistician Tony Ribeiro, who had two sons graduate and play football from Central Catholic. "He's going places. He loves the game. Just like his father did. It's been a sad week — a lot of sadness to deal with. But Spencer keeps going. The whole team does."

The team Central Catholic plays Friday knows plenty about tough times. 

McClymonds is in West Oakland, one of the toughest inner-city regions in the country. McClymonds has been a source of great pride in the community, having won three straight Silver Bowl (Oakland Section) championships and six of eight. Its basketball program has also lifted spirits, with a Division I state crown in 2008, and its alumni athletically is an impressive who's who of legends: Bill Russell, Frank Robinson, Paul Silas, Vida Pinson, Curt Flood, Jim Hines and Antonio Davis to name a few. 

McClymonds coach Curtis McCauley was more than a little sympathetic to Spencer's loss on Wednesday.

"That's a hard thing to go through at any age," he said. "At 17 or 18, very tough. Our heart goes out to the young man and their program."

Many of McCauley's players — "too many to count," he said — have endured major emotional upheaval in the past season, including a Hurricane Katrina refugee who lost family members and another player whose father was recently murdered.

"Being on the football field, being together is a real blessing," McCauley said. "It serves many purposes. We're definitely a family — we're the Mack family and that's how we fight through adversity and find ways to flourish and win."

In that regard, there is a connection between these two teams and communities.

Modesto — a somewhat rural, agricultural community known for its wine-making and dairy products and immortalized in the George Lucas film "American Graffiti" — has little in common with the inner city of Oakland. The programs, about 70 miles apart, have never faced each other over the years. The coaching staffs have never crossed paths.

McCauley, a former assistant at Laney College, coached at Modesto Junior College once. "I would imagine most of our kids have never stepped foot in Modesto," McCauley said.

The teams don't even have a common opponent this season, but what they do share is being very good at the game of football and leaning on each other in a time of need.

That, and on Friday, they'll be playing at Lincoln High School with a State Bowl berth on the line.

See game preview.

"I know our guys are ready," McCauley said on Tuesday. "We wish the game was tomorrow."

Said Canepa: "Every day that we play and practice together is a good day. We just don't want that to stop."

You can contact Mitch Stephens by email at mstephens@maxpreps.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MitchMashMax. Read VanderBeek's very personal blog on covering Spencer's story.