PETALUMA
How do you explain the success of a high school football team? Do you watch some game tape and look at the protections and the defensive adjustments? Break down the numbers, the yards per carry and turnover differential? Sure, it helps.
But if you really want to understand the heart of Casa Grande football, and how the Gauchos closed ranks to go undefeated until losing to Miramonte in the North Coast Section Division 2 championship game last weekend, you have to go back more than two years. You need to know how the worst week in Spenser Merillion's life became one of his proudest.
First, you need to know a little about Spenser Merillion.
The Casa Grande senior has Asperger syndrome, and if you are close to anyone who has received that diagnosis, you know how tricky it can be to define. Merillion does many things well. He excels at rote memorization. He's good at math and is quite well spoken. And yet some assignments that most teens would find routine are daunting for Merillion.
"He doesn't process the same," said his mother, Lydia, a campus aide at Sonoma Mountain Elementary School. "In academics, if a teacher does not repeat a procedure or break it down in easy ways, it's hard for him to understand. You can't give him a three-point assignment -- like do this, and then this, and then this."
Spenser Merillion loves to run, but his gross motor skills are lacking. He can be a bit clumsy. And like a lot of Asperger's kids, Merillion tends to speak bluntly, without much affect, making him seem disengaged to those who don't know him well.
If Merillion had more severe symptoms, or an obvious physical disability, he might have long ago become a mascot to his classmates. Instead, he was just different enough to be pushed away. Some kids mocked him at the edge of earshot. Most simply ignored him -- including the Casa football players.
"I knew they did football. I looked up to them," Merillion said. "They didn't know me. It was kind of weird. I had classes with a few of them, but they just thought of me as the nerd or just the quiet kid who does his homework."
Father battles cancer
While Merillion struggled for acceptance, he was going through something even harsher. His father, Gary, had been diagnosed with Stage IV lymphoma in October of 2002, on Spenser's seventh birthday. He was not expected to beat the cancer, but he did, with help from aggressive radiation and chemotherapy.
Gary Merillion was declared cancer-free in 2004, but he was physically devastated. The illness, which primarily affected his tonsils and lymph nodes, made it difficult to swallow food. Weakened by the treatment, Gary shed more than 100 pounds. His muscles atrophied and he lost feeling in his hands and feet, forcing him to get around in a wheelchair.
The rough-and-tumble San Francisco firefighter who owned a winter ski pass for Squaw Valley and loved to jet-ski in the summer couldn't even play catch with Spenser in front of the house. Father and son would go to movies together sometimes, but even then Lydia would have to drive them to the theater and help Gary inside.
In the spring of 2012, Spenser thought of a way to make his ailing dad happy. He would try out for the Casa football team.
"I didn't even tell my mom," Spenser said. "I sat down and I looked him straight in the eye and I asked him, 'Can I have a moment of your time?' . . . And I told him, 'Dad, I want to go out for the football team.' And to this day, that's one of the biggest things that I'm proud to have said to my father. I could tell by his reaction that he thought it was a dream."
Gary had played at Petaluma High after moving from San Francisco for his senior year, and for ages he had tried to lure his son to the couch to watch 49ers games. Spenser, hyper-focused on Japanese manga comics and into video games, had never been interested in Frank Gore or Patrick Willis.
But that day, he walked into the spring meeting, dozens of bemused gazes aimed in his direction, and declared his intention to play football. Casa Grande coach Trent Herzog doesn't cut anyone. He told Spenser that if he was willing to put in the work and accept a backup role, he could be a Gaucho. Late that summer, as he started his junior year, Merillion began to practice with the team.
Starting from scratch
It was a bumpy ride. Merillion knew nothing about football. Herzog asked him which position he wanted to play. Merillion didn't know the positions. Herzog asked him his favorite player. He didn't have one. Merillion said he was pretty fast, so Herzog put him at wide receiver and defensive back, and the coaches went about teaching him the basics of catching a pass.
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: