Willie Francis
November 7, 2013
Gertrude Frances Norris
November 13, 2013
Smiles have been hard to come by lately for the Covenant Christian Academy football team.
But Lions head coach Blyght Wunstell and his players shared a few this week when asked to remember Caleb Allridge – a 16-year-old teammate and classmate that tragically passed away two Fridays ago at his family’s home – just hours before planning to attend CCA’s football game that night.
Just more than a week after Allridge’s sudden death, the Lions opened their doors to visitors this week and shared their feelings about Allridge. Together, they offered raw emotions about a young man they described as “kind,” “gentle” and “a joy to be around.”
As a football team, the CCA coach and players said that the Lions will dedicate the remainder of the 2013 season in Allridge’s memory.
They think that honor would mean the world to the fallen player, whom the team believes is watching them play from heaven.
“We’re giving it everything we’ve got for the rest of the regular season for him,” Lions’ player Ceon Sauceberry said. “He loved our team and the game of football. If he could look down at us right now, he’d smile and tell us, ‘It’s OK. Ya’ll go out there and play for me, but also for yourselves, too.’”
“I’m not the judge – that job only belongs to the Lord,” Wunstell added. “But I’m very, very sure that Caleb is in the kingdom of heaven right now with the Lord. He was just a wonderful young man who did everything right. It’s hard, but we understand that it’s a part of life. And as more time goes by, we all understand that he’s in a better place – the place that we all live our life trying to get to.”
‘WHAT A MATURE YOUNG MAN’
Wunstell said Allridge had been with the school since the beginning days of the Lions’ football program.
The coach said he vividly remembers the young man’s entrance interview when he and his family were applying to enroll him within the school.
“The question was, ‘Why do you want to come to school here?’” Wunstell remembers with a smile. “And Caleb said, ‘I prayed about it, and I just feel like God called me here.’ So we asked him, ‘What do you mean by that?’ And he told me that he had done research on the Internet and he liked what our school stood for and he felt like God was calling him to be a part of it.
“Nobody knew who CCA was at this time. Caleb told us he could go to pretty much any private school in this area. I remember always being impressed with him from day one, because I remember hearing that answer and saying, ‘What a mature young man.’”
After enrolling at CCA, Allridge immediately got active in sports. Through athletics, he got to become intertwined with classmates, which allowed him to make many friends on the campus.
Those classmates and teammates all said the same thing about Allridge this week – he was an easy-going and loving young man.
“He loved life,” Allridge’s cousin and CCA teammate Sashen Staidum said. “He was always laughing, always smiling. We were always joking around and cutting up. He was someone that everyone always wanted to be around.”
“We were really, really close,” Lions’ football player Dayshon Livas added. “I had seen him just the day before he died and he was just smiling at me. That’s who he was. That’s what he did. He always wanted to be happy. And he always wanted you to be happy, too.”
Wunstell said that on the playing field, Allridge wasn’t the greatest athlete, but was a serviceable hand along the team’s offensive and defensive lines.
But for what Allridge lacked in athleticism, Wunstell said he made up for it in diligence.
The coach said Allridge was a role model teammate because of his hard working nature and his willingness to be coached.
“Was he the greatest football player? No. He was above average,” Wunstell said. “But he worked hard for everything he got. Caleb earned everything he’d ever gotten. He wasn’t one of those kids that had things come easy for him on the field. He was a great worker.”
After serving as a reserve for the first few years of his career, Allridge broke into the team’s starting lineup before this past season.
But he didn’t get to enjoy much time as a full-time starter because of a knee injury that knocked him out of the lineup earlier this year.
He was expecting to return to the team for the playoffs.
“He told me he was going to come back,” Livas said. “He told me that we were going to win the state championship together. I believed it, too. I knew we were going to win it together.”
‘HOW DO YOU TELL THOSE BOYS SOMETHING LIKE THAT? HOW?’
The news of Allridge’s passing took Wunstell and the rest of the school’s community by storm because of its unexpected nature.
“No one ever woke up that morning and expected anything like this to happen,” Wunstell said. “It was just a normal Friday to us over here.”
Wunstell said Allridge left as scheduled on Nov. 1 and arrived home to take a shower. The CCA sophomore offensive and defensive lineman was not going to play in the team’s game that night because of a knee injury that had sidelined him for the better part of the season.
“He had just gone for a checkup and everything and the MRI said that everything was good,” Wunstell said. “We were actually expecting to get him back on the field for us at some point this season or in the playoffs.”
But on that Friday afternoon, Allridge never got out of the shower under his own power. Family members found the young man collapsed in the restroom. Medical professionals arrived and tried to revive Allridge, but were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead at approximately 2 p.m.
An autopsy conducted on Allridge labeled his cause of death as natural causes. Wunstell said that the family has also learned that because of Allridge’s knee injury, he developed an unknown blood clot, which broke off into his lungs.
Finding out about Allridge’s passing marked, “the most difficult thing” in Wunstell’s coaching career.
The coach said he informed his coaching staff of the news and then gathered the team together to inform them of the situation.
“There were not a lot of dry eyes,” Wunstell said. “How do you tell those boys something like that? How? What do you say?”
After informing the team, the coach then went classroom to classroom within the school to let every student at school know the news.
“The entire school here is one big family,” Wunstell said. “Everyone knows everyone else and it’s all a tight-knit community. When we were telling the classes, it was just so quiet and somber. There was so much sadness. You could really see then just how much Caleb was loved.”
‘CALEB WANTS US TO PLAY’
After finding out about Allridge’s death, CCA had a very short turnaround.
The school’s students and players had to quickly gather themselves and make a decision about whether or not to play the team’s scheduled game against Ridgewood Prep.
Wunstell said he initially didn’t know what to do regarding the game, because he didn’t know if his players would be ready to play, nor if Allridge’s family would approve of the Lions going forward with the contest.
But the school made the decision to go forward with the game after Allridge’s older brother P.J. gave the program the blessing of the family.
Wunstell said he met with P.J., who told him that Caleb would want the team to play – and win the game in his memory.
“He told me how much Caleb loved CCA,” Wunstell said. “PJ told me how much his brother loved his coaches and his teammates and everything about the school.”
But more importantly than convincing Wunstell, PJ Allridge also convinced the Lions’ players that they were ready to compete in the game.
Wunstell invited the brother to lead CCA out onto the field before the game. PJ Allridge also gave the squad its pregame pep talk.
“PJ told me, ‘Coach, I don’t know what to say,’” Wunstell said. “I told him, ‘Son, just speak from your heart. Just let it all out.’ He did exactly that. He told our football team exactly how his brother felt about our program and our players.
“And he told our football team that Caleb was watching us from heaven, and that he would want nothing more than for us to go forward and to continue with our goals. He got our kids into the right frame of mind.
With heavy hearts, the Lions roared, scoring a dominant 53-0 victory against Ridgewood.
Wunstell said CCA left its heart and soul on the field in memory of Allridge.
The players on the team agreed.
“We gave our everything on that night to play for him,” Lions’ player Callan Bourg said. “We knew he was watching. He wanted us to play our best game of the season. We definitely gave it our best shot for him.”
“It was hard, but it was necessary,” Sauceberry said. “We needed to get back on the field to get that closure. In any tragedy, there comes a point where you have to experience normalcy again. For us, being back on that field marked that.”
‘WE’LL NEVER FORGET HIM’
Allridge was laid to rest this past Friday before a large gathering of family, friends and classmates. The entire CCA football team attended the funeral.
Just hours later, the team again had to take the field with a heavy heart in the Lions’ regular season finale with St. Martin’s.
But as the days slowly go by, the Lions’ players said that Allridge’s passing gradually becomes easier to understand and comprehend.
The team’s players all said that they take comfort in knowing that Caleb is able to see them all of the time now.
“He’s still here in spirit,” Staidum said. “We’ll always keep him with us and we’ll always dedicate what we do this season to him.
“The rest of this year is for him.”
Wunstell agreed and said that his sadness has shifted toward pride as he takes comfort in knowing that Allridge is in a better place.
He said that his player lived a life filled with happiness. Though gone too soon, Wunstell said any life filled with joy is one worth celebrating.
“We are constantly preaching to our football team that they need to live as Christ wants them to live,” Wunstell said. “Jesus walked the earth for 33 years, and our goal is to try and be as close to him as possible, meaning we’re supposed to pick people up, be positive and have a positive impact on people. As Caleb’s father away from his home – all my players are like my sons – I smile right now, because I’m so proud of the young man. He did it. He lived that life. We’re sad that he’s gone, but we’re happy that he was here and a part of our lives.
“We’ll never forget him. I can promise you that. We’ll never forget him.”
Members of the Covenant Christian Academy football team pose with the jersey of their teammate Caleb Allridge. The Lions are planning to dedicate their season to Allridge, who passed away two weeks ago after an apparent blood clot. Teammates and coaches remembered Allridge this week for his fun-loving personality and his love for life.
