PREP REVIEW : Football Player Gets a Lucky Break

It may sound a bit odd to say a kid who broke his neck is lucky, but Jayson Bern is.

Bern, a senior at Cypress High School, played nose tackle on the school football team. Thursday, in the first quarter of an Empire League game against Esperanza, he was pursuing an Esperanza runner when the runner cut back. Bern’s head smashed into the back of the runner and Bern dropped.

His parents, Michael and Catherine, were watching from the stands at Valencia’s Bradford Stadium.

“At first we didn’t think it was anything serious,” Michael said. “We thought he just got dinged up. But then they told both teams to get off the field and we knew it was something bad.”

Bern was taken off the field on a stretcher and transported to Placentia Linda Community Hospital.

“We were with him in the emergency room,” Michael said. “It was a busy night. There was another football player with a dislocated elbow, people with heart problems. When they took him for X-rays, we went outside to try and get some air and gather our thoughts. When they brought him back, a doctor pulled us into a room. When he said Jayson had a broken neck, it just about destroyed my wife.”

Fortunately, Bern’s injury--an anterior lateral break of the sixth vertebra--did not cause any paralysis. He spent Thursday night and Friday in the hospital, but was home by Saturday afternoon, wearing a hard plastic neck brace.

Almost incredibly, Bern is planning on attending classes today at Cypress.

“We consider ourselves very lucky,” Michael said.

So do his friends and coaches on the Cypress football team. John Selbe, Cypress head coach, admitted it was difficult to keep his mind on Thursday’s game--eventually won by Esperanza, 28-3--after Bern’s injury.

“Everybody was shaken up about it,” Selbe said. “He’s a great kid that a lot of the other players look up to. He had had some trouble with pinched nerves in his neck, and at first I was hoping that was all it was. But it became apparent pretty soon that it was a lot more serious.

“But to show you what kind of kid Jayson is, he sent his father back to tell the team to play hard the rest of the game.”

Bern’s football career is definitely over.

“My son played his last game Thursday,” Michael said.

Doctors have told Jayson that if he’s careful and allows the vertebrae to heal, he stands a good chance of avoiding surgery.

“We’ve had so much support from so many people,” Michael said. “Players, coaches and parents from both teams came to the hospital to check on him. I’m pretty biased, but I think my son’s a great kid, although I do think he’s used up one of his nine lives.”

In 1985, Fred DiPalma turned around a floundering Santiago football program. The Cavaliers had won only three games in 1984, but in 1985 they won their first six.

Four years and two jobs later, DiPalma is at it again, helping to turn the fortunes of a Savanna football program that seemed beyond hope.

The Rebels won only one game last season--they were outscored 334-55--and had won only six games in the past five years.

In stepped DiPalma, who had spent the previous two years as an assistant coach under Mike Marrujo at Valencia.

“I thought I might like to try being a head coach again,” DiPalma said. “When I told people I was going for the Savanna job, some of them thought I was crazy. But I thought there might really be some potential here.”

Most conspicuously were the imposing frames of offensive tackle Michael George (6-feet-4, 285-pounds) and defensive tackle Robert Landis (6-3, 270) and the all-around talents of running back/linebacker Kenison PoChing.

DiPalma took over in April and immediately set about trying to change his team’s attitude with some symbolic changes.

“We bought brand new home uniforms, we changed our helmet decals,” DiPalma said. “We wanted to change the way the kids perceived themselves and their team. We wanted to show them that the way things were wasn’t going to be the way things were going to be any longer. We wanted to change the attitude that, ‘Oh, we’re from Savanna, so we’re not supposed to win at football’ ”

Still, things got off to a disturbing start when Savanna lost its first game of the season, 17-12, to Garden Grove, the only team it had beaten last season. That was followed by a 17-14 loss to Santiago.

But in the next six weeks, Savanna lost only once (33-21 to Troy) to improve to 4-3-1.

After defeating Brea-Olinda, 21-6, Friday, DiPalma’s team finds itself tied for second in the Orange League with Valencia at 2-0-1. Western leads with a 3-0 record. If Savanna wins one of its remaining two games--it plays Anaheim (0-3 in league) Friday at Glover Stadium and Western on Nov. 10--it will make the playoffs for the first time since 1983.

The key to the Rebels’ season may not have been a victory but a 14-14 tie against Valencia, the league’s six-time defending champion.

“The kids weren’t necessarily happy about tying, but it did give them the confidence that they could play with a great program like Valencia,” DiPalma said.

Savanna is definitely not flashy. Relying on a run-oriented, ball-control offense with PoChing, who rushed for 147 yards and a touchdown against Brea, doing the bulk of the work.

The defense has been tough, allowing 28 points in three league games.

DiPalma hopes his team won’t let up in the next two weeks, even though they need just one victory. He remembers 1985, when his 6-0 Santiago team lost three of its last four games and missed the playoffs.

“I remember that very well,” DiPalma said.

This figures to be a great week for Orange County water polo fans.

How’s this for numbers: In the final week of the regular season, three of the county’s most competitive leagues will have showdowns for league titles featuring six teams ranked in the county’s top 10 poll.

Corona del Mar (ranked No. 1) and Newport Harbor (No. 8), both 4-0 in league, play Wednesday at Newport Harbor to decide yet another Sea View League championship.

In the South Coast League, Capistrano Valley (No. 2) and El Toro (No. 3), both 4-0 in league, and ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in the 3-A, play Thursday at El Toro.

Also Wednesday, Villa Park (No. 4) and Foothill (No. 6), each 4-0 in the Century League, play at Foothill.