Jeff Salerno wants to play college football some day. Maybe,
even next fall.
But, the Sheldon High School senior right now has the job of
being his football team’s biggest encourager on the sidelines – while sitting
in his wheelchair.
It was just 13 months ago, one day before the Huskies were
set to open fall drills, that Jeff’s dreams of a stellar junior season were
crudely dashed. As a passenger in a vehicle driven by his uncle, Salerno was
badly hurt when they hit a telephone pole along Bradshaw Road, near Folsom
Blvd.
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| Jeff Salerno, left, with Sheldon football coach Herbie Berry |
“I went through about 31 hours of surgery just to put things
back together,” Salerno recalled.
That began the long, agonizing recovery process that still
lingers to this day. The 6-4, 300-pound offensive lineman doesn’t show any
emotional effect at all from the near-death incident. In fact, he now ranks
right up there among the elite positive thinkers anywhere around.
“He was a great football player, started every game as a
sophomore,” Sheldon head coach Herbie Berry said. “Wonderful, positive,
hard-working, dedicated. He’s one of those guys who I knew would (graduate from
high school) with a (college football) scholarship because of his size and
tenacity.”
“To have something like that happen to him is so devastating
to him and his family,” Berry continued. “Because it took away an opportunity
that I think was clearly there for him.”
The multiple injuries prevented Salerno from attending
school last year. But, that didn’t keep him from advancing ahead in his studies
while recovering physically.
“I had to homeschool, but the teachers were fantastic,” he
said. “They’d come to my house whenever I needed something and they were great.
They stayed by my side the whole time.”
So encouraged was Salerno that as soon as he felt well
enough he returned to school last month. One day he’d like to be an aircraft
engineer.
“It pays well and I’ve always loved the thought of flying,”
he said.
He’s still wheeling himself around in the chair with a large
ankle brace the only remaining sign of the serious injury. And, he has plans to
be physically ready to play football again.
“He knows the odds are against him, but he’s the type of kid
that is going to try his hardest to make it happen,” Berry said.
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| Salerno is greeted by members of the entire Antelope football team |
Salerno wanted to thank his teammates and Berry, in
particular, so on Friday in a bit of an impromptu pre-game ceremony, he asked
Berry to join him at the 50-yard line while a letter to the team, written by
Salerno, was read over the public address system. Then he gave Berry and the
Huskies’ football program a check for $1000, money raised by him and his family
as their way of saying thank you for all the support shown Salerno during his
recovery.
The financial gift was definitely the highlight of the night
for the Huskies and all their fans because once the game with Antelope kicked
off, things rapidly deteriorated. The Titans (1-1) took advantage of a pair of
early Sheldon (1-1) turnovers to jump to a big lead right away and then cruised
to a 56-9 victory.
“The game got out of hand early and we were never able to
recover,” Berry observed.
The Titans returned the opening kickoff to the Sheldon 45.
Antelope quarterback Montel Aaron then hooked up with Mister Harriel on a
44-yard play to the one. Aaron snuck the ball across on the next play to give
the Titans a 6-0 lead, after Casey Burton missed the extra point kick. Just one minute had clicked off the clock.
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EGUSD Week One Results
Monterey Trail 29, Inderkum 27
Bellarmine 42, Franklin 28
Granite Bay 40, Cosumnes Oaks 7
Delhi 40, Florin 12
Valley 44, Natomas 43
Christian Brothers 46, Laguna Creek 23
********
On Sheldon’s third play from scrimmage Huskies’ quarterback
Nathan Berry was picked off by Devin Elmore at the Sheldon 45. Antelope scored
eight plays later to make it 13-0.
After the ensuing kickoff, Sheldon fumbled the ball on the
second play from scrimmage and Zack Horsley recovered at the Sheldon 46. Four
plays later, the Titans scored once again and it was 20-0 with still 4:50
remaining in the first period.
“Two huge turnovers right out the gate, they scored on both
and we weren’t able to recover as a football team,” Berry said. “We have to
learn how to recover. Mike Tyson used to say, ‘everybody has a game plan until
you get hit in the face.’ I think that’s what happened to us tonight.”
Berry said he was encouraged by the play of sophomore
running back Graylon Lindsey III.
“He ran really hard all night,” Berry said. “He’s
super-talented and never gives up. Even though we were way down, he ran as hard
as he could in the first quarter, same in the fourth.”
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| Sheldon quarterback Nathan Berry gets advice from last year's | QB, Nolan Merker |
The third-year head coach took a share of the blame for the
poor performance on himself.
“I don’t think we were as well prepared as we should have
been,” he admitted. “I think the kids had the kind of week of practice that was
conducive to success and I think we need to bare down in preparation and have
more complete practices that are preparing us for the games on Friday night.”
This Friday, the Huskies travel to Auburn to take on Placer.
“We know Placer is big up front,” Berry said. “We know they
have a good and strong offensive and defensive line. So, what we have to do is
try to out-athlete them. Try to get the ball in space, see if we can make it
difficult for them with our athletes.”
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