Chauncey Pierce Sr. hasn’t been to one of his son’s football games all season.
Instead, the Army veteran has spent the past year in Iraq doing his job, serving his country and just staying alive. When time allowed his mind to wander back to the intricacies of the life he was missing back home, he couldn’t help but wonder how the Fountain-Fort Carson Trojans and defensive tackle Chauncey Pierce Jr. were doing.
They’ve been doing just fine. Class 4A Pikes Peak League champions, in fact, and ready tonight for their first home playoff game since 2003.
Pierce Sr., a sergeant first class, arrived back at Fort Carson on Thursday morning, back to the arms of Lisa, his high school sweetheart and wife of nearly 20 years, and back to doing the things most fathers don’t give a second thought. Like getting ready to go watch some high school football.
“Once you’re over there and realize what you’re in and what’s going on around you, you really cherish the times and what you have with your family,” Pierce Sr. said. “It’s just wonderful to see him play at least one more time.”
The sound of his son’s voice Thursday had a comfort to it.
Though thoughtful and well-spoken earlier in the week, there was more ease in his words now that the house, which includes baby brother Jamire, is full again.
Now, it’s all about tonight when the Trojans square off against Littleton.
“It feels real good,” Pierce Jr. said. “It feels great, like a weight is off my shoulders.”
Mitch Johnson can’t put his finger on the rhythm anymore. The families come and go pretty quickly now as troops deploy and redeploy in a way he’s never seen in more than 20 years coaching football at Fountain-Fort Carson.
“In the old days here, we could actually predict the cycle,” Johnson said. “There were always defined troop movements and we always had time to prepare. With the war now and guys in harm’s way, it’s a continual process.
“The war is all too real here. Our only sanctuary with the kids is almost during the school days.”
Sixty percent of kids in the school district have one or both parents on active duty. At the high school level, that number shrinks to 40 percent. Of the 45 varsity football players, seven have a parent who was in Iraq in the past year and 10 others have parents who recently retired from active duty.
Sports are one of those safe havens. It’s a place of stability, focus and tranquility, where students “can come every day where the carpet is not going to get jerked out from under their feet,” Johnson says.
The trick, though, has always been to develop cohesion and teach kids to work and fight together even though they hardly know each other. The football team calls it S.O.B., or Sold On Blue, the color of their gridiron family.
“Football is a place where you can just let everything go and not worry about it,” Pierce Jr. said.
Jamaal Johnson rushed for more than 1,000 yards this season to spearhead the Trojans’ potent running game. In his second year at the high school (via stops in Germany, Texas and California), Johnson has become a fast and shifty threat running and catching the ball out of the backfield.
But his rise to stardom has coincided with his father’s two tours in Iraq.
“When I play football, I’m still thinking about my dad, but I’m not worrying about it,” he said. “It’s my place to get away.”
Johnson’s father got home just after Fountain-Fort Carson’s 28-7 victory over Cheyenne Mountain last Friday. After nearly two seasons of running with his father on his mind, he’ll be in the stands tonight.
“Now, I really want to perform,” Johnson said. “I have to put on a show.”
Sports connects families
CJ Lacer’s parents have totaled three tours in Iraq. His mother, Nickie, who is an emergency-room nurse, got back Oct. 5.
CJ first lived in Arizona but has been around Fort Carson since third grade. A junior special-teams player and backup tight end, he, like many players, has had to grow up fast.
When CJ’s father, Gary, was deployed, head-of-household duties fell on big sister Kristin, then 18.
Concerned? Master Sgt. Gary Lacer said that gave way to pride as his kids got a glimpse of adult life and came through swimmingly.
Besides phone calls and e-mails, the family stayed mentally synchronized through sports. If there was a game, everyone was thinking about it.
“It’s always been a big thing to watch him play,” said Lacer, who returned from Iraq before CJ’s season began. “It’s a constant. When I’m deployed, or Nickie is, it’s a constant to know he really enjoys sports. Sports helped him settle in here and get involved in school and it keeps his grades up.”
When Nickie got back for her first football game this season, she couldn’t believe her eyes.
“He’d grown up so much,” she said. “He was 180 pounds. I thought my husband put him on steroids.”
When Chauncey Pierce Sr. was deployed, he told his son it was his time to step up, Lisa Pierce recalls. There is no shortage of pride in her voice when she tells you how Chauncey Jr. cares for his little brother, works a double-shift on Saturday and another shift Sunday at Red Robin, plays out his senior season of football and still hits the books.
Everything will change again tonight at Guy R. Barickman Stadium. But that, for once, is a good thing.
“The feeling is overwhelming,” said Pierce Sr., a North Carolina native. “It’s hard to describe just coming from where you’ve been. You don’t see that over there, the tightknit families or going to see football games. I missed it so much. I can’t wait to be out here looking at my son, watching him play.
“Even if he don’t play, it’s going to be fun just being here in the United States.”
