Football: Hayward’s home opener Friday night will be emotional
HAYWARD — Hayward senior Jamal Boyd figures to go through a gamut of emotions when the unbeaten Farmers host Washington in their home opener on Friday.
But he can handle it.
Memories remain fresh of his close friend Naphtali Moi Moi, a former Farmers star who drowned off Half Moon Bay in the spring. A beloved team captain known as “Neff,” he was all set to graduate and head to Wyoming on a football scholarship when tragedy struck.
The Farmers, off to a 2-0 start this season, plan to honor the Moi Moi family during a halftime ceremony on Friday. Hayward was also jolted by the recent passing of the mother of lineman Daniel Fukofuka. She was a team mom.
Boyd, a 6-foot and 270-pound fullback/defensive tackle, is channeling all the pain into something positive. His teammates are too.
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“The way I deal with what happened in the past is we learn to channel everything and all that anger and all that sadness from what happened onto the field,” said Boyd, who played on the defensive line with ‘Neff.’ “It’s all controlled emotions. We use it in the best way possible. We respect him. We just do everything for him, and one player’s mom. We do everything for them.”
Wyoming honored the Moi Moi family during Saturday’s come-from-behind win over Missouri 37-31 at War Memorial Stadium. The Cowboys trailed 14-0 at the time of the ceremony after the first quarter. Wyoming head coach Craig Bohl hugged family members as they were walking off the field, and then something special happened. A little more Moi Moi magic?
“That very play Wyoming forced a fumble and took it back to the house for a touchdown and then scored two more touchdowns in that quarter and ended up winning the game and beating Missouri. It’s kind of a cool story,” Hayward coach Justin Redemer recalled.
Redemer has been impressed with his players’ ability to handle everything so well. Hayward has wins over Pinole Valley 40-0 and Castro Valley 28-23, flying to the football on defense and showing balance on offense. Boyd has amassed 12 total tackles, 10 solo.
“We’ve had a couple of moments where kids got a little overly emotional and we had to deal with that, but generally speaking, I feel like the guys have handled it well and played hard and honored his memory in that way,” Redemer said.
The coach thinks the players will handle another emotional ceremony just fine on Friday night.
“Overall, I feel like our players … we’ve been visiting the family and ‘Neff’ at the gravesite every week before the game, so it’s not gonna be like a new experience to be approaching this.”
More than playing football, ‘Neff,’ the youngest of four children, was active in the Mormon church and led a disciplined life. He was deeply admired. But on that fateful spring day, ‘Neff’ fell off a boogie board on Poplar Beach, and due to strong currents and waves his friends couldn’t rescue him.
“He was a big part of the community and was really important to the school,” Redemer said. “It was a school loss, not just a football team loss or a loss among just people that knew him. The whole school was shaken by it.”
Boyd and ‘Neff’ spent a lot of time together through the years. Their older brothers played football and hung out together as well.
“Me and Neff met in the fourth grade. I was in the fourth grade; he was in the fifth. I tried out for basketball, and we kind of got in a tussle,” Boyd recalled with a laugh. “But ever since then we’ve just been friends playing sports together on the same team for the majority of my life.”
Boyd can to attest to his longtime pal’s character, for sure.
“It wasn’t just the school thing with me and Ness,” Boyd said. “It was like we’d hang out in off-campus stuff, birthdays and all that. He was pretty active in the church. He wasn’t really allowed to go out on Sundays. When we’d ask him to hang out, he was like ‘No, I’ve got to go to church.’”
Now it’s on to Game 3 for the Farmers. They expect a stern test from the Huskies and will be leaning on each other for strength as they go.
“How we look at it, it’s life and things happen, but you’ve got to be able to take from it and move on and do it as a team together and support each other for whatever we do,” Boyd said.