Impact of one moment felt across generations
School honors former player years after hit
By Melody Gutierrez - mgutierrez@sacbee.com
Published 12:34 am PDT Saturday, October 11, 2008
It's just a jersey.
The gold shines despite time. The black No. 40 is peeling. But, pinned and pressed inside a glass frame,
the jersey is displayed for Rio Linda High School's teenage football players, who now know the legacy and
heartbreak it represents.
Friday, a group of Rio Linda alumni from the late 1960s attended the Knights' homecoming game against Natomas and remembered Ernie Pelton, the boy who donned that No. 40 jersey. They recalled the bone-jarring hit Pelton took while returning the second-half kickoff against Elk Grove and the landmark Sacramento trial that followed. Most of the details surrounding the November 1967 game are lost in time.
Nearly 41 years after that fateful night, people don't remember the score or who won. They no longer care.
As the school retired Pelton's jersey during a pregame ceremony, they thought of the charismatic boy and the quadriplegic man he became.
"It was really a sad moment when they took him off the field," said Shirley Geiger-Smith, who graduated from Rio Linda in 1968 and helped organize Friday's ceremony. "Very sad. People in those classes still talk about it."
And with the jersey displayed for future generations of players, Pelton's legacy will live on, said Rio Linda football coach Mike Morris. Senior tight end Stefen Davidson will be the last varsity player to wear No. 40. And the significance of that isn't lost on the 17-year-old. "I'm sharing a jersey with a guy who has accomplished something in his life," Davidson said. "I have the honor to wear it, and it's a great feeling."
Memories don’t fade
Most of the past four decades are a blur for the Pelton family. Ernie Pelton's three brain surgeries and ensuing civil trial addled their memories, but everyone remembers Nov. 10, 1967.
And being at Rio Linda's football stadium Friday made it hard to forget. It was the first time Pelton's mother, Margaret, attended a football game since the accident. Her son, Bob Pelton, wheeled her into the stadium, and she promised not to cry. Seeing the jersey unveiled and hearing her son's name announced over the loudspeaker did her in.
"It looks so beautiful," said Margaret Pelton, 83, as she huddled under two blankets on the cold October night. "I can't believe how nice it looks after all these years."
Ernie Pelton died Sept. 9, 2007, at UC Davis Medical Center of pneumonia. He was 57. A closed-casket funeral followed nine days later, with friends from high school packing Sunset Lawn Chapel of the Chimes in North Sacramento. Pelton's gold jersey was draped from a metal hanger over the cherrywood casket.
Pelton lived most of his life bedridden inside a pink house with white shutters, where his mother cared for him until a stroke and diabetes slowed her down. His sister, Linda Lacusky, then became his primary caregiver, despite struggling with mounting debt. Lacusky's grief remains fresh; she declined to attend Friday's ceremony.
Margaret Pelton has been in relatively good health since Pelton her son died, although she asks daily to return to her South Sacramento home from a nursing home in South Land Park. However, the family can't afford the in-home care she would need.
Despite attending Friday's Rio Linda game, Margaret Pelton resents football.
And time has not quelled the family's resentment toward the helmet manufacturer it feels was responsible for Pelton's accident. His family believed the helmet did not adequately protect Pelton from what it perceived as a routine tackle. A lawsuit filed by the family in 1968 became the first major helmet liability case to go to trial in the United States, according to published reports at the time. The lawsuit carried an unheard-of price tag for that time - $3.6 million - that the family hoped would pay for a lifetime of physical therapy for Pelton.
Instead, the case - which went to trial in 1970 - became a circus, lawyers from the defense and prosecution told The Bee in separate interviews in 1989 and 2007. It became more of a spectacle after O.J. Simpson testified in defense of helmet maker Rawlings Sporting Goods Co.
Though the Peltons' case prompted a flood of other liability lawsuits that helped force helmet manufacturers to upgrade and test their products, it did not help their financial needs. The trial ended in 89 days. The Peltons were awarded nothing. 'Always a Knight'
After reading The Bee's two-part series last November, Stacey Ackman immediately went to work. As the president of the Touch Down Club, a volunteer booster club for the Rio Linda football program, Ackman began thinking of ways to honor Pelton.
"We have a motto we live by here: 'Once a Knight, Always a Knight,' " said Ackman, who has a son on the football team. "We consider Ernie to be a family member and are honored to recognize him." While brainstorming ways to celebrate Pelton's memory, Ackman continually ran into alumni who were at the 1967 game.
"I had been involved in the football program for years, and no one had talked of Ernie or the Peltons," Ackman said. "I have now heard from so many people. It's pretty special. I think it will be inspiring to the boys."
But handing over the jersey wasn't easy for Bob Pelton, who had it in his closet.
"We thought of making a replica, but that's not what this is about," he said. "It needed to be the real one."
So Bob Pelton surrendered the long-sleeved gold jersey with the peeling No. 40. And it was pinned, pressed and placed inside a glass frame for the football players at Rio Linda High School to see.
