About 4 months ago, after I returned to work last school year, our school’s football coach, Bill Stacy, approached me one day while taking roll out at the PE area. He said to me that he had been thinking about me a lot and that he was going to be dedicating next football season to me! (yes me! The previous years ERHS Football dedicated their seasons to our troops in Iraq, Donna Logan (a coaches wife whom lost her battle to breast cancer, Victress Bower, an elementary school in our district for the severely handicap) He told me how impressed he was with me…with my courage and strength that I had the whole time I was sick. And since I impressed him so much he wanted to do this for me. He wanted his team to see what it takes for a fight and thought I’d be a good person to learn that from. As he told me all this, while still wearing my bandana and no eyebrows I started to cry. Was shocked that a colleague would see that in me and do something like this.
So the time came…we had our first home game and Bill (and Yosh) kept the little dedication ceremony quiet. Bill just said he’d love for me to have Owen, my parents and friends there…he wanted everyone in my life to be involved! I knew I had to be there before the game and I knew I was going to get to do the coin flip. But was amazed when I saw this…
What this picture does not show is that on the other side of the balloon arch there are student athletes from girls/boys soccer, boys basketball, baseball, softball, cross country, girls/boys water polo, etc. A TON of kids there to welcome me into the stadium. Bill had contacted all the athletic coaches to get all the kids down on the field for my entrance.
I was walked in by 10 of the football teams captains, hand in hand. Some of the most polite gentlemen I’ve come across in a very long time. They were pumped for their game in front of their friends and family, but were so sensitive to the fact that I was nervous about this entrance…but I will say, I did have to remind them that we were WALKING and not RUNNING..I was terrified they’d forget and they’d drag my down the field! hahaha That woulda been a funny sight!
Daddy entertained Owen down on the field while all this was going on. Owen wasn’t too sure of all the loud noises, the drumming from the band, the screams and cheers from the crowd…it was all a bit much for him…until he found a “fooball” (as Owen says it) and he was fine then!
So my job wasn’t over yet…the part I was most nervous about. I was in charge of the coin flip. Got out to half, met the captains of the other team (I introduced myself as the New Team Member) haha. Flipped the coin and…..
All I thought was, what if I messed up, lost the flip and it resulted in a BAD game. We all know my luck…NOT so great at times….BUT….
“Souza got to flip the coin before Friday's game. Roosevelt won. Makes sense. For Souza these days, things are landing right side up.” – Press-Enterprise
I got to run off that field with those boys happy….my flip won!! And we ended up smashing Murrieta Valley 33-12!! Thank Goodness!! Just wanted to Thank Bill Stacy and the whole Roosevelt Football program for choosing me…I’m truly honored and speechless with this recognition! Lets have an awesome football season…GO MUSTANGS!
ps. Oddly enough I got interviewed by a newspaper reporter from the Press-Enterprise and the article that came out in the Saturday Paper was awesome. Here is the link and I’m copying and pasting the article as well!
http://www.pe.com/columns/mattcalkins/stories/PE_Sports_Local_D_hsgt_calkins_18.31f4fd2.html
Calkins: Roosevelt coach shows heart
01:01 AM PDT on Saturday, September 18, 2010
By MATT CALKINS
The Press-Enterprise
EASTVALE - When Hall of Fame announcer Chick Hearn died eight years ago, the Lakers dedicated their season to him. When Moreno Valley Rancho Verde defensive end Emil Smith was killed in a car crash last July, his teammates did the same.
So Friday, as the PA announcer broadcast that the Eastvale Roosevelt football team was devoting its season to physical education teacher and girls water polo coach Erin Souza, I thought "bummer."
Then I met the woman. Turns out few people are as full of life.
John, Erin and Owen Souza have every reason to be all smiles now that Erin has been declared cancer-free.
Thirteen months ago, three days into her Laughlin vacation, the 28-year-old Souza received a call from a doctor telling her she had Hodgkin's Lymphoma. It was diagnosed as stage 2, but treated as stage 4 given how it occupied her entire chest.
"The first thing I did is look at my 4-month-old son and think about how I might die," said Souza, donning an orange shirt bejeweled with the word "Mustangs" on the front.
Then positive thoughts staged a coup de tat and took over her brain.
Throughout her 24 weeks of chemotherapy, a hairless Souza entered treatment smiling and bragging about her good looks. Grins were a bit more elusive for her husband, John, who admits Erin was the stronger of the two and that he feared having to tell his son, Owen, about his mom when he grew up.
Now? She's cancer-free.
Roosevelt senior Lauren Klein said that Souza's struggle was "the heart of the campus," with students and faculty ardently rallying for her to pull through. But upon her recovery, Roosevelt coach Bill Stacy decided that celebrating her life wasn't enough. He turned it into an all-out bash.
Stacy's the one who declared that this season would be played for her. He's the reason every Roosevelt coach wore a purple ribbon on his shirt bearing the word "Souza" underneath, and why a purple ribbon is painted on each player's helmet with "Coach Souza" scribbled across.
It was a moving gesture, no doubt -- a gesture that pried tears out of Souza when she found out and one that choked her husband up Friday.
But for Stacy, it was nothing particularly unusual.
The fifth-year coach has two disabled sons: 9-year-old Elijah, who has muscular dystrophy, and 6-year-old Max, who suffered a stroke during open-heart surgery when he was 8 months old and is now blind. So to Stacy, educating his players on other people's hardships is just as important as perfecting the defense or moving the chains.
That's why he and his team visit kids from a local handicapped school each year and wheel them out to the football field. That's why he takes helmets to soldiers in Iraq, too.
So when a colleague of his survived cancer in the chest, Stacy showed some heart.
"I deal with tragedy, and I want to teach my kids about it," said Stacy, whose Mustangs downed Murrieta Valley, 33-12, Friday. "This was a young lady who bought a home, had a 6-month-old baby and her whole world was turned upside down."
Souza got to flip the coin before Friday's game. Roosevelt won. Makes sense.
For Souza these days, things are landing right side up.
Reach Matt Calkins at 951-368-9649 or mcalkins@PE.com
