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Adam Griffin recalls the day his family moved into this neighborhood filled with manicured lawns and majestic houses, the summer before seventh grade. The date was 6/6/06, perhaps not the best number, and he sat forlorn at the edge the road, struggling with the change.

Chase Bunting rode up on his bike and plopped down beside him.

“Don’t worry about your old neighborhood,” the younger boy tells Adam. “We’ll make this neighborhood feel like home.”

Years later, Adam joins a swarm of classmates descending on Moses Cone Hospital. The boys play lacrosse for Northwest Guilford High School, Chase a muscular sophomore defenseman with his eyes on a Division I scholarship, Adam a stout junior attackman buried on the depth chart.

Adam bursts into the emergency room, leading the way to the ICU. He’s here to see Chase, in critical condition after falling off his skateboard around the corner from where they live, the impact with the pavement crushing the back of his skull.

“How do you know where you’re going?” shouts a teammate.

“I was here a year ago,” Adam says, “for my dad.”

The death of 16-year-old Chase Bunting tears a gaping hole in the heart of this community, which mourns, cheers, weeps and prays through the lacrosse team’s subsequent, improbable run to a state title. Northwest Guilford (20-2) won its final 10 games, stunning East Chapel Hill, 13-9, in the finals.

It’s a tragic, magic season, one of countless tales. One is about a father losing his son, a son facing the possible loss of his father, and a third dad, a coach, leading a group of grief-stricken boys, including his own, from unthinkable depths toward something far greater and less tangible than a trophy.

* * *

Twenty months ago, shortly before surgeons remove a nickel-sized, cancerous tumor from his brain, Mark Griffin visits his father’s grave site, alone. He kneels beside the headstone.

“Dad, I understand if you need me,” he says. “But if you can do without me for a little while, with my family and my children, I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a little longer.”

Mark thought he had beaten the horrendous disease, but learned midway through Northwest’s season that the growth had returned, right about the time his only son, Adam, began starting for the Vikings. His tumor is grade IV, the most malignant, dangerous type.

Mark, an attorney, stands in the garage of his Summerfield home and adjusts the Northwest lacrosse cap hiding the wisps of hair on his head. He smiles at the gorgeous chrome Harley he’s no longer allowed to ride. A wheelchair sits nearby.

A 3-inch vertical scar runs down the left side of Mark’s skull, forming a divot in front of the ear. His rubber “GRIFFSTRONG” bracelet dangles halfway up his arm.

The father of two had a chemotherapy treatment this morning, but he is amiable and happy to have company. He’ll celebrate his 50th birthday this September.

“I hope that they can keep me alive until they come up with a cure,” he says.

Adam disappears upstairs.

“He doesn’t like to talk about these things.”

* * *

Jay Bunting, a sharp-dressed man with soft eyes, answers the door two houses over.

The 54-year-old works for Remington, in the guns and ammo business, and has traveled the world hunting large game. Trophy kills decorate the living room walls. A gigantic black bearskin hangs head-down above the fireplace.

Set up in a corner, by the base of the steps, is a table full of Chase’s belongings, including his No. 17 jersey and the team MVP plaque his parents accepted on his behalf after the season. It’s also where the boy’s ashes are resting in an urn.

“It’s the worst thing that can happen to anybody,” Jay says, sobbing, mourning the loss of his only son. “You can have your house burn down, you can lose all your money, you can lose your job, you can lose your parents, but you’re never supposed to bury your kids.”

Chase earned his driver’s license less than a month before his death. He chose to be an organ donor. Doctors harvested his heart, pancreas, liver and both kidneys, and four people had their lives saved or the quality of their lives improved as a result of his decision.

Jay entertains the idea of one day placing his hand on someone’s chest and feeling his son’s heartbeat.

“It’s been a hard, hard, a very, very hard and difficult and painful road,” he says, “and there’s not a minute that goes by where you’re not thinking that this can’t still be real after almost eight months. But it is real, and every day is kind of like a work in progress.”

Today is Jay and his wife’s 25th wedding anniversary. Robin, the Northwest boys lacrosse “team mom,” is at a swim meet with Ashley, the couple’s lone remaining child.

A pot of Hamburger Helper sits on the stove.

* * *

Jay Goldsmith is tall, handsome and captain of the Northwest Guilford lacrosse team, the coach’s son and eventual state title game MVP. He’s signed to play Division I lacrosse at Lynchburg College next season. He’s been dating Ashley Bunting on-and-off for more than a year, and the two will celebrate together the night of the title game, at the senior prom.

Jay Goldsmith drapes Chase Bunting’s white No. 17 jersey over the team’s bench for each home game.

Mark Goldsmith, 53, is a superstitious and emotional man with nearly 30 years of coaching experience. But he never even had to deal with the death of a player’s parent, let alone one of his players.

When the team dubbed its season the “Chase for the championship,” it was the coach who was charged with providing perspective, needing to temper expectations. Northwest was by no means favored to compete for a state crown.

“They wanted to do everything for Chase,” the coach says, choking up, “and I had to be the one who said, 'No. You can’t play for Chase, because then if you lose, you let Chase down. We honor Chase with the way we play on the field and the way we behave off the field, but we play for us.’ That was a key thing that I had to get across to them.”

It was lost on no one the significance of the boys winning their season opener by the score of 17-0, a fitting tribute to their lost friend and teammate, No. 17.

After two midseason defeats and learning Mark Griffin’s cancer had returned, the coach began starting Adam Griffin instead of the boy’s best friend, one of the team’s leading scorers, leaving Adam in for at least the first 2 or 3 minutes of every contest. The coach wanted to provide Adam with a reward for sticking with the game, and the boy’s father with the thrill of seeing his child on the field. Adam started every game the rest of the way, including the state championship, wondering the whole time whether the coach was trying to motivate his friend, who was secretly on board with the decision, or just out of superstition since the team kept winning.

“I just thought it was the right thing to do,” the coach says.

Northwest won the regular season finale by a 17-goal margin, as well.

* * *

They scored the game-winning goal with less than 20 seconds remaining in a state quarterfinal against rival Grimsley, and from that point couldn’t be stopped. A couple of the state’s marquee programs were upset in the first round, providing home field advantage for a blowout semifinal victory against Charlotte Providence that catapulted Northwest into the state championship game at a neutral site in Cary.

There’s a collective sigh when the Vikings learn they’ve been assigned to wear home whites, a big relief for the superstitious bunch. Jay Goldsmith was definitely draping Chase’s jersey over the bench. The team even has “No. 17, Chase Bunting!” announced with the rest of the roster during title game introductions.

Dark clouds roll through the sky and it rains for much of the afternoon, not hard enough to halt the game, but gloomy nonetheless, eerily similar weather to the day of Chase’s accident.

Northwest’s offensive onslaught against Providence continues against East Chapel Hill. The Vikings jump to a 7-0 lead after the first quarter, with Jay Goldsmith having the game of his life, scoring on five of his first six shots.

Adam Griffin opens the second half on the sideline, near Chase Bunting’s jersey. He joins in full-throated chorus with the souls in the stands, dripping with rainwater and emotions, cheering their muddy friends and children onto a storybook bit of closure.

“The culmination, winning that and seeing my dad in the stands, knowing we did that for Chase, I know it meant more to us than it could have meant to any other team in the state,” Adam said. “Out of Chase’s death you had a community come together and a team realize a goal and fulfill a promise, and boys become men. The games, the moments are fleeting, but the enduring lesson is there’s only so long that we all have. You have to live in the moment. We all learned how precious life is, and it’s something that we’ll have for the rest of our lives, this year, and the lessons that we’ve learned from it.”

With Northwest Guilford leading 12-5 in the third quarter, shortly after scoring the 17th goal of the game, the rain lets up long enough for a surreal, gratifying experience, one shared, yet unique to each.

Things like this happen in fairy tales, they’re not supposed to happen in real life. But there it is, right there, a rainbow arcing over the stadium, easing the anguish, erasing the gloom, stretching across the heavens for all to see.
 

Contact Jason Wolf at 373-7034 or jason.wolf@news-record.com