The best of people 
A newspaper on the ground reports on the recovery efforts by residents following the storm.
Photo by Vincent Carchietta
Two days after the storm, Wagner gathered as many players as he could contact and had them meet at the fieldhouse to share stories and get updates on how everyone was doing.
He then organized them to start going door-to-door to help residents of the destroyed areas near the beach in addition to assisting members of the team whose homes were wrecked. Wearing their red and white, the players began knocking down drywall, ripping up carpets and carrying debris to the curb for neighbors and strangers alike.
"I said, ‘Listen, they've been so supportive of us this year, let's help some of those people out,''' Wagner said. "(There were) a lot of tears, but a lot of pride and a lot of understanding about what kids are about today. Sometimes 16-year-olds get a pretty bad rap out there that they're not concerned. I think it really exposed them to the community. Those are those same kids you're cheering for on Friday night, and here they are in your homes helping.''
"That was incredible,'' Kusma said. "You had all these people that had really had a lot of their lives taken away from them. Just to give them a little bit of help for two hours in a day was awesome. You saw a lot of smiles on people's faces that I don't think (they had) in the past few days.''
The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association postponed the games scheduled that week to the following week, so the Garnet Gulls could focus strictly on helping repair a shattered area. By a quirk of the schedule, they had their bye week scheduled at that time, which resulted in a three-week layoff before the state playoffs began. Many players were living in temporary housing, and helping others took their minds off their own situations.
Point Pleasant Beach head coach John Wagner
Photo by Vincent Carchietta
"Once we started working on other houses, we knew it wasn't just us,'' Cochran said. "Everyone got affected. It brought a different sense to everything.''
"You feel guilty because I had no damage from the storm, and I know people who lost houses,'' Brodeur said. "You hear them say, ‘Everything is gone. What do we do?' You just feel helpless. It tugs at your soul.''
The school reopened on Nov. 8, one day before a "nor'easter" rolled through to further add to the misery and hinder relief efforts. There were no physical education classes because the gym was filled wall-to-wall with supplies donated to families in need.
"We just wanted to get the kids in here to know where they were and allow them to network with each other just to find out where everyone was,'' Point Pleasant Beach Athletic Director Ellen Magliaro said. "We had students coming in to the gym just to get clothes because they had lost everything."
Local real estate broker Bruce Fioretti, the uncle of sophomore starting quarterback
Jake Fioretti, jumped into action to help find displaced families somewhere to live.
"We started an exchange on Facebook for people who needed housing and people who had housing to rent because half the town was destroyed,'' Fioretti said. "You really saw the best of people in all of this because people stepped up and helped however they could by renting their homes or taking in families.''
A week after the storm, the players were back at practice to give them something to count on in a time where nothing else in their lives was certain. The main question that loomed was whether Sandy would derail a dominating season in which the Garnet Gulls had scored at least 40 points in each of their first eight games. They were averaging 325 yards rushing per game in their Wing-T attack with the three-headed beast of Tighe, Cochran and senior
Kyle Samaritano.
The hurricane may have changed their lives, but it didn't change their goals. They wanted to become the first team in school history to win a sectional championship and finish 12-0.
