Remembering Sean Tow: El Dorado County mourns the loss of beloved football star and coach
People looked up to Sean Tow, even though he often peered up at them.
Tow towered in stature, statistics and impact in pouring out every ounce of his 5-foot-6 frame, first as a star three-sport athlete at Union Mine High School in El Dorado County and then as a key cog for a national championship program at Southern Oregon. Tow extended his legacy in his last act as a teacher and coach at Union Mine. He died June 15 from complications of pancreatitis in a Southern California hospital during a trip to Disneyland. He was 28.
This was supposed to be the time of his life. Tow started teaching health and physical education at Union Mine in 2021 and got engaged on March 3 to his college sweetheart, Kiley Barcroft. They bought a house to start their life together. There was a candlelight memorial to honor Tow on June 25 on the campus of Union Mine, where scores of friends and family and members of a small community met to remember one of their own.
A celebration of life for Tow will be held Thursday at Green Valley Community Church in Placerville.
“I’m moved by all of the support and kind words from so many people, but not surprised,” said Tow’s mother, Michelle Tow Park. “He had such a deep heart, a good heart, and he cared about people. He wanted to make people laugh. Coming back here to teach and coach, giving back, meant the world to him. He definitely touched a lot of lives.”
Tow’s sudden passing stunned everyone.
“We didn’t know he had pancreatitis,” Tow Park said of an ailment where the digestive enzymes start to digest the pancreas itself.
The pancreas, a long, flat gland located in the upper abdomen, produces digestive juices, insulin and other hormones to aid in digestion.
“We knew something was going on but we weren’t sure,” Tow Park continued. “He was in pain and was trying to push through it. We didn’t know it was so severe.”
Tow was admitted into an Anaheim hospital late on a Thursday night and died less than 24 hours later, his mother and fiance by his side.
“If Sean had a message,” his mother said, “it’s to take care of yourself and to love on each other because life is short. It’s a huge message from him.”
Tow enjoyed family, fishing, football, camping, snowboarding, golf — anything outdoors. He also liked to lead. Tow inspired because he didn’t look the part of a three-time Sacramento Bee All-Metro football star, but he made up for a lack of bulk with a lot of burst. He was packaged into a 5-6, 145-pound bundle of energy and effort, insisting he wasn’t too small for football because he was too quick for the bigger guys who tried to zero in on him.
“When you’re the smallest guy,” Tow once told The Bee, “you have to be elusive and fast. I’m that, and I can take a hit.”
“I always knew that he could do anything he wanted to put his mind to,” Tow’s mother said. “And he loved to make people laugh. He’d get people together for a photo and go, ‘OK, 1, 2, 3 ... wait. Let’s do it again!’ We all loved that.”
Tow in high school was a three-time league MVP in football, a three-year varsity starter in baseball and a three-time league champion in wrestling. He rushed for 414 yards against Galt as a junior in 2011, which still ranks as the fifth best single-game effort in Sacramento-area prep football history.
That effort came a year after Tow set a CIF Sac-Joaquin Section sophomore rushing record of 2,261 yards. Tow’s 5,717 career rushing yards are the most by any prep in the history of El Dorado County and the third most in regional history behind the 6,192 that Cameron Skattebo of Rio Linda (and now Arizona State) had from 2017-19, and the 6,178 yards that former Grant star and NFL running back Onterrio Smith produced from 1995-98.
Tow was Union Mine’s first great athlete, one who also sported perfect grades, and he was a sure thing to make the school’s Hall of Fame. The school opened in El Dorado in 1999.
Tow was a starter for Southern Oregon’s 2014 NAIA national championship team, an experience that sold him on the idea of a career in teaching and coaching. It was on the Ashland campus that Tow met Kiley, who became his fiance. Tow was a beloved assistant coach in recent seasons at Union Mine, where he mentored football players and wrestlers.
“He was a great human,” Union Mine assistant coach Taylor Duncan said. “All the achievements on the field pale in comparison to what a great person he was. He always had amazing insight and was wise beyond his years. He was able to connect with anyone. He always had a huge smile. He had a huge impact on kids on campus. I’m going to miss him. I looked at him as a little brother. I’m still in shock.”
Andrew Duran was one of those Tow impacted at Union Mine. A Bee All-Metro linebacker headed to Linfield College in Oregon, Duran said he had the “privilege to learn from Coach Tow every single day.”
Duran added: “He truly was a great man. He taught me so much more than a simple game. He taught me manhood, brotherhood and maturity. He always reminded the team that the game was more than just a sport. For me specifically, he was a role model. When I wasn’t in the game, I was always standing next to coach Tow. Whenever I was injured or just needed to cool off, he was by my side until I was better. Whenever I needed something as simple as advice in my personal life, he always had time to offer. I’m endlessly grateful to have had coach Tow in my life.”
Tow was motivated to excel growing up by older brothers Cody, Kyle and Ryan. The boys were inspired by their father, Randy Tow, a prep football star at El Dorado years earlier who died of a heart attack in 2006 at 42.
Randy introduced his sons to sports and challenged them to do their best, especially as students. During his prep days, Tow’s mother fell gravely ill. She was hospitalized for 37 days, 14 of those in intensive care. A nurse one day urged the boys to come say goodbye. She felt their strength and made a full recovery.
Said Michelle Park Tow in a 2012 Bee story: “I’m just so impressed with how they have handled everything. They’ve been through a lot in life. They don’t make excuses and they put 100% into everything they do.”
Said Michelle to The Bee recently: “If it wasn’t for the boys, I don’t think I would have made it out of bed.”
Michelle remarried to Jim Park, who embraced Tow and his brothers as his own.
Mourning another loss
Athletics and the kids who run and play often bind communities in El Dorado County much like they do in small regions across the country. Sporting events are often the social hub on a Friday night for football, a weeknight for wrestling, a weekend for baseball.
The area felt the loss of Chic Bist in 2019 when the beloved, barrel-chested coach with bear-sized hands, a square jaw and booming personality died from pancreatic cancer at 71. He coached 45 years of high school football at various levels throughout El Dorado County, including as head coach at Union Mine right up to his death.
Bist died 15 months after the death of his daughter, Hope Bist. A senior multi-sport performer and star student at Ponderosa High in Shingle Springs, Hope Bist somehow lost control of her car on her way to a morning Spanish final, hitting a tree on a country road. Her father told The Bee months later before he coached his Union Mine team in a game: “You don’t ever get over something like this, losing a child. There’s a pain there all the time.”
It was 10 years ago this week that El Dorado County was jolted by the death of Dick Dichiara, a longtime counselor/coach at Ponderosa, El Dorado and Union Mine. He died at 70 in a machinery accident while digging holes on the family orchard in El Dorado County.
Dichiara’s granddaughter, Carlee Kramer, competed in his honor growing up, including during a four-year soccer career at El Dorado High in Placerville. A recent graduate, Kramer will compete and study at Folsom Lake College.
Shock and sadness
Now, the region mourns the loss of another in Tow.
“Obviously a shock to everyone,” said Rikki King, a longtime area resident whose son, Jaxon, was a Bee All-Metro lineman at Union Mine and now plays at Grambling State University in Louisiana. “As a family, we attended football games at Union Mine long before Jaxon played there, and the Tow brothers were quite famous in these parts.
“Then, when Sean came back to be assistant coach for UM, he was such a bright light for the players. He was able to balance the trusting relationship and bond with the players while still having their complete respect as a coach and mentor. As a young coach, that’s hard.”
King added: “Then Sean took over the wrestling program like a champ. Fund raised and led them. Everyone loved him. You couldn’t help it. He smiled and encouraged everyone. This news hit Jaxon hard. He went fishing that day, his happy place, so he could process it.”
Fishing was also Tow’s getaway venture to ponder life. His mother has a photo of her youngest son fishing as her Facebook profile image. It shows a man, who never lost his youthful cheer, in his element.
