Campolindo’s Guiding Hand
I do not believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.
Woody Allen
I’ve never fully grasped the concept of Divine Intervention, but based on what’s happening lately in Moraga, one could argue God has developed a fondness for navy blue and red. Let’s look at the evidence.
December 2014- Bob Wilson, Campolindo High School’s longtime athletic director, teacher and coach, is dying. From 1998-2013, Wilson took an athletic program that excelled primarily at swimming and girls basketball and built it into a powerhouse that competed for titles in a host of sports, including cross country, volleyball, basketball, and baseball. During his tenure, Campolindo was twice selected as state Division III School of the Year by Cal-Hi sports, and in 2010 Wilson was honored by the California Coaches Association as the California Boys’ Athletic Director of the Year. When it came to Campo sports, Bob was the biggest man on the campus.
December 12, 2014– The eve of the Northern California Section Division III Football Championship game between Campolindo and Sacramento’s Sutter High. Bob, a fanatical fan of Campo football who, despite his rapidly failing health, pestered the coaches to give him rides to games, is deemed too ill to travel. So the Campo coaches and players, many of whom played for Wilson in his final season as Campo’s freshman football coach, did the only logical thing; they went to see Bob at his home. They present him a signed team picture bearing an inscription dedicating an NCS championship victory to him.
December 13, 2014– Campo rallies from a 14-0 deficit and thumps Sutter 35-14 to advance to the State Championship game, the school’s second shot at a state football title in three years.
December 17, 2014– After a three year battle with thymic carcinoma, a cancer of the thymus gland, Bob dies at the age of 62.
December 20, 2014– CIF Division III State Championship Football game in Carson, CA. It’s early in the third quarter, and Campo trails San Diego’s El Capitan High by a score of 28-7. Just like the previous week, Campo stages a frenetic comeback to tie the game with 4:30 to play. With less than a minute left in the game, El Capitan has the ball on the Campolindo 10-yard line, a chip shot field goal away from winning the game. On first down, the El Capitan quarterback hands the ball off. Just as the team’s star running back is about is to turn the corner and head into the end zone, Campo’s Tiger Garcia tackles the speedy back and knocks the ball loose. The ball hits the turf and bounces serendipitously into the hands of Campo’s Adam Remotto, who proceeds to gallop 85 yards the other way as if his hair is on fire. Forever known around Moraga as The Immaculate Rumble, the stunning turn of events gives Campolindo its first state football crown. “Bob’s presence was definitely in this game,” said Kevin Macy, Campo’s head football coach. “I can’t explain how that last play happened…When it was happening I was thinking there’s some intervention taking place. I’ve never seen something like that in a game before.”
March 28, 2015– This Saturday at 4:00pm at UC Berkeley’s Hass Pavilion, Campolindo will square off against the Damian Spartans from La Verne in the CIF Division III Boys State Basketball Championship. Should the Cougars be victorious in this gladiatorial scrum between Northern and Southern cagers, Campolindo would become the first Northern California school to win state titles in both football and boys basketball during the same academic year. Even mighty De La Salle, a private Roman Catholic school whose legendary football feats became the stuff of Hollywood, hasn’t climbed that mountain.
Bob may be gone, buy my money says his celestial fingerprints are all over this. Go Campo!