Football game brings rebirth, hope, lights to town of Paradise

Charred cars, obliterated neighborhoods and charcoaled vegetation are left in the wake of the most destructive wildfire in California history, which claimed 150,000-plus acres, 18,000 structures and 86 lives.

Over the past nine months, the harrowing and heartbreaking tales of heroism, homelessness and upheaval have been shared and retold by virtually every media outlet in every form, leaving a layer of despair as thick as the ash that remains in this Butte County town once bustling with nearly 27,000 residents, that now that hovers around 2,000.

On Friday night, however, at the end of this trail, lies a ray of hope, a beacon of light. Friday Night Lights. The lights of Paradise on a football field of dreams. Remarkably, the high school was barely touched by the blaze, and the football field and stadium stand tall. The grass is green. The soil, rich.

On Friday, the Bobcats, whose 8-2 varsity season was cut short on the eve of the 2018 postseason, begins the 2019 schedule anew with the community, a region, a state and even a nation cheering for them.

Om Wraith Field normally holds roughly 2,500 fans officials say, but Friday's season-opening game against Williams should more than double that. Some believe attendance could climb to 10,000. Extra stands are being brought in.

The community is hungry to rally around something solid, unified and cohesive. Sporting shimmering bright uniforms doesn't hurt either. Neither does winning. 

These Bobcats fit the bill. They always have. The town has religiously supported the successful program, especially when head coach Rick Prinz took over 20 years ago. The varsity team has reached the playoffs 18 of those years, won 10 league titles and won 166 of 220 games. 

But clearly, this game and this season is different.

Besides the throngs of fans and community supporters anticipated for Friday night, a national media barrage has struck as well.


Special credentials and heavy security measures around the media — and the game itself — are planned for Friday, said the school's athletic director Anne Stearns.

A full-time teacher on campus and the Bobcats' varsity girls volleyball coach, Stearns is simply on overload. She's received more than 3,000 e-mails over the last five days and has to charge her phone at least three times a day because of the media requests. 

She hears almost daily from national news agencies CBS, NBC and ABC.

"Honestly, the attention around this first game is crazier than the days right after the fire," she said. "Is all this attention good? For the most part, absolutely. It's just not normal. And the kids get asked the same questions over and over about the day of the fire. It gets emotionally draining. Some are definitely over (all the questions). I look out for them. They're trying to get back to normal. These are like my own kids. I'm in the middle of all of this also."

According to Stearns, none from the football program lost their lives. All but nine of the 104 program's players, lost their homes. All the coaches lost theirs, including junior varsity assistant Trevor Nixon. He, his wife Jennifer and their three daughters, one of them, Tatum, a Paradise cheerleader, lost everything in the fire but the clothes on their back.

Nixon is also a head coach in the Bobcats' youth program, which feeds into the high school squad. The Nixons, like most involved in the school, are deeply entrenched into the community, one now scarred and challenged.

That's why Nixon believes all the media coverage and attention is positive. "It's the best thing anyone could do for our kids," he said. "It brings everything into perspective and shows the kind of perseverance they've shown since November. It also shows that our expectations are no different. We're still out to win games."

With a loss of approximately 30 percent of its enrollment, Paradise dropped from Division 2 to Division 4, so the winning should continue. But that's not why Prinz continues to coach even though last season was supposed to be his last.

He told Plaschke that he couldn't walk away. "I can't leave the kids like this," he said. 

Certainly not after the sacrifices they are making. Most have been relocated, 10 to 30 miles outside of Paradise. They've found a way to get to school and up The Skyway practice so they stay connected. Bonded. As a team. A family, Survivors. "Brothers to the bone," they say in unison when breaking practice-time huddles.

"Being out there on the field is the only thing that feels right," sophomore receiver Taylor Brady told Plaschke.

"Just getting a chance to play football again is amazing," junior linebacker Spencer Kiefer said.

In that regard, it's difficult to determine who will get more out of Friday's game. The players? The community? A country seeking inspiration? 

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