Monday, September 10, 2001

Kauf still a part of Badgers football

Kauf

BISHOP — This looked like a normal football Friday. The lights shining at Bishop High School’s stadium, the band blaring at halftime and the fans screaming from the stands certainly made it feel and sound right. But it wasn’t.
   And, in a way, it won’t be normal again for Bishop’s Badgers, at least not for the rest of this season.
   Something — someone — is missing.
   On Friday, Aug. 31, senior receiver Kris Kauf was killed in an automobile accident in Kingsville. Last Monday, he was laid to rest in a casket draped with green and gold Badger jerseys at the funeral service.
   Kauf, of course, was more than a football player. He was a son. A brother. A friend. A classmate. And now, he will be an inspiration. The Badgers have dedicated their season to him.
   That all began Friday night, with a 49-19 loss to Odem. But Friday’s result, really, was meaningless. If anything, Kauf’s death should help us place things in proper perspective: that football is just a game, that life can be as fleeting as it is precious.
   Bishop will continue to be a team in mourning. They will not forget Kauf, a likeable young man nicknamed “Nebraska” because of his well-documented love for Cornhusker football.
   “It was one of those things that you don’t think is going to happen to you,” said fullback James Beam the day after Kauf died. “It was like a big part of me was torn out when he died.”
   That’s because it has. Many of the team’s players have never experienced death this close before, the kind of loss that twists at your insides, the kind that makes you stand next to your friend’s casket the day of a funeral and ask: Why?
   “It’s been a hard time. It’s been very difficult. They don’t understand,” Bishop coach Barry Wolf said. “All teen-agers think they’re Superman or Superwoman.”
   Life, of course, has gone on. Friday was as much looking to the future as it was hanging on to the past. At the school’s pep rally, Wolf gathered the players on the floor of the gym and, one by one, introduced them to the student body.
   Players lined up behind him. But there was a gap between No. 76 (Ezquiel Palacios) and No. 82 (Omar Perez).
   The space in between them should have been No. 80, the number that Kauf wore. The gym then fell silent for 12 long seconds in honor of Kauf.
   Before the pep rally, Wolf gathered his team in the green and gold locker room and preached to his captains. Be leaders of the team, he said. Show leadership and character.
   This season, every Badger will need to be a leader. Kauf will be remembered by those who loved him most.
   He was not there Friday night.
   And, in a way, he was.
  
   Sports Editor Richard Tijerina can be contacted at 886-3745 or tijerinar@caller.com
  
  
  

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