Padecky: James Forni’s eternal impact

PETALUMA - Time was short for James Forni, L.J. Callan knew that. Callan had to pay James one more visit. James had helped the Callan family work their way through the death of their son, Brett, in 2004. Brett played basketball for James, would have run through hell fire for his coach.

On Saturday, June 20, nine days before James passed, Callan went to James’ bedside. After the hugs and the terms of endearment Callan had one request for his son’s coach.

“When you reach you final destination, James, “ Callan said, “could you help Brett work on his free throws?”

Without a pause James responded, “You know I will, L.J. You know I will.”

In that shrouded moment somewhere between sadness and pain, even then, when the temptation to run to morose was there, L.J. Callan reflected James Forni and his outlook on life with crystal clarity - L.J. still kept things positive. And James snapped it right up, smiling. L.J. had been paying attention to James. It was easy to do.

That’s why there is an ache in this town today, an ache that the best and brightest of us is gone. That may sound like stretched hyperbole, an overwrought reaction, based and exaggerated on simple sorrow. Nothing could be farther from the truth, once you hear the words, once you hear the emotion.

“Our community is broken right now,” said Heather Campbell, a Casa teacher and athletic trainer.

A man’s worth, you see, can be measured by the tears he leaves behind.

“Every time I try to speak about him,” said Julie Callan, Brett’s mother, in a text message, “I cry. That’s why I can’t speak to you.”

“I don’t think I can say much without breaking down,” said Joey Rodriguez, a former Casa player, in a text. “So text me your questions.” Rodriguez answered my questions, 1,231 words later.

“I just lost my best friend,” said Rick O’Brien, Casa’s athletic director. “If I start crying I apologize.”

O’Brien apologized three times in the interview, the last one followed with “I appreciate you calling but I don’t want to say anymore. OK?”

What manner of man evokes this kind of response? After word circulated of his death Sunday morning upwards of 40 current or ex-Casa players went to school’s gym Sunday night. For two and half hours they hooped it and they cried and they told stories and they huddled together in circles, a spontaneous, cathartic release.

“I had to go to my car and sit alone,” said Tyler Nadolski, a former player. “And then I went to my room (at home) to be alone.”

How can one man who championed the word “Vincero” - Italian for “I will win” - find that phrase making its way all the way to Warriors coach Steve Kerr? Kerr has a Facebook posting wearing a T-shirt with that word on it. How can a guy be such an influence that Nadolski has “Vincero” tattooed on his right wrist?

Because James was the real deal. Kids can smell phonies like a bear can smell a hamburger three miles away. With their radar kids can sense the vibration of a coach strung too tight, too self-absorbed, too preoccupied with moving them around like so many chess pieces.

James? This is the part one might find hard to believe. James wasn’t about James. James was about everyone else. James never saw players. He saw human beings.

“I’d go into his office and ask him a basketball question,” Nadolski said. “He’d say, “Stop! We’re not going to talk basketball. How are YOU doing?’”

Very few kids benefited more from James the Mentor than Nadolski.

“When I came to Casa,” he said. “I was a hothead. If I wasn’t going to listen to him I was just going to be another punk sitting at the end of the bench.”

This was James’ genius - he got teenagers to listen. Ask any parent of a teenager how easy that is. If a player in a game was about to come undone, James would call timeout right then and there, even if it meant costing Casa the game.

“That is not how we do things around here,” James would say.

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t attack. He didn’t lose control.

“I never heard him curse,” Rodriguez wrote.

James walked his talk. He led by example. He never asked his players to do something he couldn’t do. He had empathy by the bucket, perspective by the pound and a manner that made players want to open up to him. They would come to his office just to sit with him.

For one reason.

“We trusted him,” Nadolski said.

Even before meeting James for the first time the incoming players heard The Story. This might even read as apocryphal. But it wasn’t. The Story is as representative as any concerning James.

It was 2004. Brett Callan had perished in a car crash. James was 24.

“James asked me if he could do anything for me,” L.J. Callan said. “I didn’t think he could do anything. I mean he was only 24. But he proved me wrong.”

One thought gained traction. A 3-on-3 basketball tournament honoring Brett. It was a nice thought. Not enough, James reasoned. Let’s have a Brett Callan Christmas Tournament to honor your son, L.J.

“And it’s become one of the best Christmas tournaments around,” Callan said.

This Friday will mark the 11th year anniversary when Brett died.

“And then Sunday happened,” Callan said. The phone went quiet. He was struggling. “It’s hard to put into words how much James meant to us, James and his wife and his father, mother, brother and sister.”

Sometimes words fail. Sometimes words just skim the surface, unable to touch anything so deep as this tragedy. Words instead have to peel back time, to another day, to when the man spoke and people listened because, well, they just made so much damn sense.

“He would tell us all the time: How do you want to be remembered?” Rodriguez wrote. It was a question that challenged their maturity, a question he would hang on the kids who needed to hear it most. Find yourself in that question.

Without saying it James showed them the answer through his illness. The cancer? What cancer? James went through radiation and chemotherapy and interferon. All nasty stuff, all of it creating side-effects from hell. He dropped as much as 60 pounds. He had every reason to ask for sympathy. Never did. James was too busy living to throw a pity party.

People noticed, even very young people. Campbell has a son, Alex, now 13, about to enter Casa as a freshman. Alex has spent most of his life watching James handle his illness - James was up and down with melanoma for nine years - and Alex was more than ready to play basketball for him. Because of his mother being the athletic trainer, Alex had been around the team and James all that time. It was going to be a badge of honor for Alex. He was waiting for the fall like a horse coming out of the gate.

And then Sunday happened. James had just turned 36.

“And Alex started crying and there’s nothing I could do about that,” Campbell said. “It just breaks my heart. Just breaks my heart.”

Alex, as with anyone who knew the situation, thought James would make it. Three times the cancer scans were clean. Three times James emerged and it was as if his legend grew with it. James is as tough as they come. He was going lick this thing. This thing had met its match.

“Sometimes in practice he’d be sitting in a chair, all bundled up, too weak to get up,” Nadolski said. “Someone would gripe about getting tired from running too much. Then we would look to James in the chair. He’s there for us. And we’re complaining about running? Come on.”

James led by example. He led without whining. He led with a light than overwhelmed the dark. He always pushed himself, for his kids, for his family, for his friends and no one who ever met him will ever think first of his disease. Rather they will remember James for his lightness of being.

“James and I are fly fishing in the Little Truckee River,” O’Brien said. “It was a beautiful day. Blue skies. Warm. It was perfect. James turned to me and said, ‘There’s only one thing that can ruin this day’.”

What’s that? O’Brien asked.

“If we happen to catch a fish,” James wisecracked.

That was James Forni. It was never about fishing, never about basketball. It was always about people, about conversation. Connecting. Sharing. Living. Yes, especially that. Living. People were his life force. It was why he was here. And it’s why he’ll always be here, inside the people he touched. Even if James happens to take some time off now and then to help Brett with his free throws.

To contact Bob Padecky email him at bobpadecky@gmail.com.