I originally conceived the Ballers series as a feature that highlights individuals who, by their big hearts, step up and improve the lives of those in their community. But maybe I need to shift my myopic approach, given what I’ve experienced this football season related to Geoffrey and Mitchell’s high school alma mater, Palisades Charter High School (Pali).
As most likely know, the Palisades region of Los Angeles was devasted by fire as 2025 began. Thousands of homes damaged or destroyed. Businesses reduced to rubble. Fifty-year residents losing all possessions and having to start their lives anew. Players and their families forced to move miles and miles away from ground zero. No other way to describe the firestorm as anything other than catastrophic.
But sometimes misfortune brings out the best in humankind.
Thirty percent of the Pali campus was destroyed. The football field survived but all the surrounding storage sheds were wiped out. The stadium was in ruins. The scoreboard apparently suffered significant fire damage. One report described the athletic facilities as a “ragged tangle of charred masonry, metal and wood.” The entire campus was shut down. The football team became nomads.
As the season neared, if they wished to maintain a football program, coaches and administrators were forced to find alternate accommodations for practices and games. All the normal trappings that a football team relies upon disappeared.
As attributed to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Led by Head Coach Dylan Smith, the entire team committed to fighting through their obstacles and making this season magical. Coach Smith set a goal for the season: CIF Champions.
Allow me to share just a sprinkling of how the L.A. community graciously came to the fore to ensure that this season was the most positively memorable for these committed athletes. In no particular order of importance, as every contribution was important:
The Bay Club, a Manhattan Beach country club, hosted the players, coaches and families 60 days post inferno at their magnificent facility to bring together the “community” for a day of healing, for an opportunity to collectively set the stage for recovery.
- The Bay Club, a Manhattan Beach country club, hosted the players, coaches and families 60 days post inferno at their magnificent facility to bring together the “community” for a day of healing, for an opportunity to collectively set the stage for recovery.
- Local schools opened their campuses for Pali to practice – Santa Monica College, UCLA, Palms Middle School and John Adams Middle School in Santa Monica.
- The Los Angeles Rams jumped in. Imagine the Pali team’s excitement when they learned that a couple of their practices would be held at SoFi Stadium, home to both the Rams and Los Angeles Chargers. An experience never to be forgotten.
- With no home field, all games would be played outside the friendly confines of Stadium by the Sea. Santa Monica College, located about five miles south of the Pali campus, twice opened their football stadium as a substitute for a home field game.
- The Los Angeles Chargers caught wind of Pali’s plight early on and stepped forward in a huge way. They immediately presented the Pali football program with a $50,000 donation to help them through this season.
- After nine games Pali was on top of the heap in their league with an unblemished 9-0 record. One game stood in the way of a perfect league season. So what did the Chargers do? Remarkably, they opened up SoFi Stadium for Pali to finish their season in style. I was at that game, along with several thousand others. For the players, that night likely would be the pinnacle of their athletic careers, competing on the same field as their hometown pros. (BTW, Pali won! An undefeated regular season!!!)
- Local newspapers, the Los Angeles Times and Palisades Post, ran exposés highlighting to the broader community the plight of the Pali team and its extraordinary resilience.
- I have perspective on this from personal experience. When Geoffrey and Mitchell played for Pali, attendance at away game was sparse. At the three games I attended this year, the stands were filled with fans and supporters.
- Westcoast Sports Associates (WSA), a nonprofit dedicated to supporting economically disadvantaged children in Southern California, upon learning of Pali’s challenges, stepped up with a generous donation that will allow the program to hold a proper season-ending team banquet. Pali football parents were not about to sit on the sidelines and watch their offspring struggle. Known as the QB Club, a committee of 15 was formed to lend support to the team and the coaching staff. Whatever was necessary. Help with logistics. Communications within the team and with the outside world. Fundraising. The season would not have been as successful without this unconditional loving support.
I fortunately have had a front row seat for most of this, being introduced to a QB Club committee member as the team assembled for summer camp. Since then, we’ve almost been joined at the hip. I was invited to speak to the team during camp. As shared above, I’ve attended several games. I’ve gotten to know several other parents along the way.
There have been numerous feel-good sports related movies. My favorites – Remember the Titans, Hoosiers and Rudy (yes, all old school 😊). The story of the resilience, fortitude, determination and “never quit” attitude of this Palisades High School football team is one for the ages, itself, in my humble opinion, qualifying for a big screen adaptation.
NO one associated with the Pali football program ever gave up, adapting the famous pronouncement voiced by former North Carolina head basketball coach Jim Valvano, “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up.” They never did.
(A postscript. Pali’s season ended a couple of games short of that CIF Championship. I can only hope the players and coaches . . . and even the parents . . . quickly place any disappointment in the rear-view mirror and focus on what was accomplished this season. What the team achieved, against all odds, was extraordinary.)