An inspirational story about football and faith draws more than 150 guests to a Dana Point home

Jan. 7 dawned glum for Leesa Bellesi. She woke up and confessed to her journal that some mornings, like this one, were a struggle.

Her husband, Denny Bellesi, a beloved pastor who founded Coast Hills Church in Aliso Viejo, had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s a little over a year earlier at the age of 66.

He was out golfing with family that morning, but it had been a rough couple of weeks.

Then her friend called and asked if she had read the new book by Ben Malcolmson, “Walk On: From Pee Wee Dropout to the NFL Sidelines — My Unlikely Story of Football, Purpose, and Following an Amazing God.”

Leesa’s ears perked up. Anyone who knows Leesa (and as a pastor’s wife who has ministered to hundreds at Coast Hills over the years, that’s a lot of people) knows she is a football fanatic. She once won her fantasy football league, beating out 11 guys, including Jerry Wilkinson who played for the Rams in Super Bowl XIV. And her all-time favorite movie is “Rudy,” about Notre Dame’s most famous football walk-on.

Unlike Rudy Ruettiger who lived and breathed football, Malcolmson never actually wanted to be on USC’s football team, which was No. 1 in the nation the year he tried out. He last played (pee wee) football in fifth grade and didn’t even like it.

Malcolmson only tried out for the USC team in the spring of 2006 so he could write a funny first-person column for the student newspaper. So when he got a phone call that he had made the team, he was totally freaked out.

Whereas thestory of “Rudy” is about not giving up on your dream, Malcolmson’s is about trusting that wherever you are in life, it’s the right place. That God has a purpose.

Leesa began crying. This was exactly the message she needed to hear. She was Denny’s full-time caregiver now, and she needed to trust that that’s exactly where she needed to be.

In addition to being a football fanatic, Leesa was voted Most Enthusiastic in her yearbook.

So while your average person might have just hung up the phone and made a mental note to buy the book, Leesa announced she was going to throw Malcolmson a party and help spread the word of his story. Then she went on her computer and bought 10 of his books (and then 20 more, and then 20 more) to hand out to friends.

Malcolmson accepted Leesa’s invitation to throw him a party. On a recent Sunday he flew from Seattle to Orange County and visited her Dana Point home. Waiting were more than 150 guests, among them the JSerra Catholic High School basketball coach Keith Wilkinson, who once played for USC. He brought along his entire varsity team.

Denny opened the gathering with a prayer: “Father, thank you for your goodness and your grace, and the beautiful day this is.”

“Amen!” came a resounding response.

“Woof!” barked Maggie the dog, and everyone laughed.

Then Malcolmson plunged into his story.

He told about how he thought then-USC Coach Pete Carroll was punking him the day he got the phone call that he had made the team. How he only weighed 160 pounds at the time. How the playbook was as impenetrable as hieroglyphics.

But he wasn’t going to quit. He believed he was put on the team for a reason. Then one day during practice he was tackled, and it ripped his shoulder right out of his socket. A miraculous recovery (doctors said) put him back on the field.

Running into the Coliseum with his teammates was a high, but he remained on the sidelines — until a fan club sprang up, wearing “Get Ben In” T-shirts and chanting his name at games.

In the final home game of the season, with less than two minutes on the clock and a comfortable lead against Notre Dame, Coach Carroll did finally “Get Ben In”— and the crowd of 92,000 went wild.

But Malcolmson never believed that his purpose on the team was to help win games. At one point he thought maybe it was to start a team Bible study. He passed out fliers, but no one showed up. So he handed out fliers to host a prayer group, but again, crickets.

On Christmas Eve, he snuck Bibles into all 100 of his teammates’ lockers, each with an anonymous red Merry Christmas note sticking out.

Walking into the locker room on Dec. 26 to start practice for the Rose Bowl, he was so excited.

“I’m expecting like the Alleluia chorus to be sung,” he said.

Instead he found Bible pages ripped out and flung about the floor.

Then, five days after the team won the Rose Bowl, Malcolmson got a phone call that the team placekicker, Mario Danelo, was found dead at the bottom of a cliff in San Pedro. At the funeral, Malcolmson saw the Bible he had put in Mario’s locker on top of the casket, the red Christmas note he wrote still peeking out of its pages.

After graduation, Malcolmson took a job handling media for Carroll. And when Carroll took a job as coach of the Seattle Seahawks, Malcolmson followed. He’s been his special assistant for the past eight years.

Three years after Mario’s funeral, he ran into former team punter Taylor Odegard in Seattle.

“How’s it going?” Malcolmson asked.

Taylor told him he was great, that his life had “totally turned around” after he found that Bible in his locker and began to read it — along with Mario. The two had begun reading the Bible together the week of Mario’s death, Taylor told Malcolmson.

Malcolmson then told Taylor it was he who had put the Bibles in their lockers.

They hugged.

“I just hope you see yourself in this story in some way,” Malcolmson told the crowd on Leesa’s backyard patio. “Maybe you’re feeling this right now in your workplace or even in your neighborhood: that God called you for a purpose but you’re not seeing it.”

Leesa for one sees herself in his story.

“I know God has a great plan for Denny and I in this,” she says. “We have made the decision to live this out loud. To teach other people what this [Alzheimer’s journey] is about. That there is something more in living this one life we have been given.”

Lori Basheda is a contributor to Times Community News.