Praying a community can quickly and quietly get back to the season

I was born on a snowy evening in upstate New York, where my parents, and starting that day, me, lived for a few years in the late 1970s before returning to the Pacific Northwest. While my mother was at the hospital waiting to deliver that Saturday, my father was at their rental home, watching a USC-UCLA football game that would determine whether the Bruins or his hometown Huskies would win the Pac-10 and go to the Rose Bowl.

I know my dad's precise whereabouts because he and his brother would write weekly letters to each other, and my uncle — who perhaps unsurprisingly became a librarian — saved them all. So several years ago I was able to read the thoughts of a man about to become a dad for the first time, and I learned where I (and my mother, more importantly at the moment) ranked next to Washington getting a chance to go beat the undefeated Michigan Wolverines in Pasadena (which Don James and Co. did, 27-20, and I don't blame the old man one bit).

So Thursday's news that USC and UCLA are leaving the conference for a share of the Big 10's pile of money maybe struck me on some deep level that stems from my first day here. And I'm a Husky fan through and through, so the confusion of losing rivalries and what this all means to fall afternoons at Husky Stadium shot up the list of newsy stories demanding my attention.

The odd thing was that this week, in late June of all times, it was the second bombshell having to do with football. A Supreme Court ruling drew attention back to Bremerton High's 2015 fall season, as you all know, even if the narrative stopped being really about football a while ago. I've read or listened to too many national stories glossing over the details of what was happening those days at Memorial Stadium — that Joe Kennedy was "the coach" rather than an assistant with few in-game duties, that the community had been in tumult over the issue, that Joe had been doing his post-game praying thing alone. Naturally, none of the media pundits or well-heeled attorneys or thousands of internet trolls who've crudely taunted Bremerton schools employees care much about the Knights.

I say this because the Establishment Clause issues, certainly significant nationally, and potential fees in the millions piling up on a school district, definitely important locally, both tend to crowd out a story that gets left behind by the narrative created about Coach Joe and Bremerton. That's the story actually about kids playing football.

At the end of the 2015 season, Kennedy's contract was infamously not renewed. The head coach at the time, Nate Gillam, also chose not to return. The school hired Paul Theriault from Colusa, California, where he had turned a team that won a single game over two years into a playoff contender. Theriault's done a similar thing in Bremerton, where the Knights have had one losing season over the past six, played in the district playoffs several times and compiled a 31-21 overall record — with nary a peep about any conflict related to the parallel legal sideshow that developed and culminated this week. For context, over Gillam's 11 seasons, during the time Kennedy was an assistant, BHS went 34-76. What Coach T has done, particularly given the environment he arrived in, has been admirable and a great thing for dozens of young men.

No one's ever suggested those post-game prayers were asking a higher power for wins. I don't believe God operates that way anyway, and even if a person did believe it's possible, the strategy wouldn't have been working very well. I do remember praying when I participated in high school sports, however. Standing alone on a track contemplating an 800-meter run that was going to lead to the dry heaves has a way of doing that. God, make this go by quickly and as painlessly as possible. (If I took a knee post-race, it's because my legs were jelly.)

If Coach Joe does take the field with the Knights again, as he says he will, dragging along the baggage and hard feelings that's going to include, I'll say the same prayer. Make it quick. And as painless as can be. And maybe bless the online trolls and politicians with a culture war battle in someone else's hometown. Those Knights, who I'd guess by that time will in part be made up of kids who were learning to read when this all began, will have better things to focus on, and to be thankful for.

David Nelson has been editor of the Kitsap Sun since 2009. Contact him at david.nelson@kitsapsun.com. 

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: David Nelson: Asking for a quick and quiet return for the Knights