There are many things that happen in high school football games that will be replayed over and over in a young athlete’s life.
For Scotts Valley High School senior Eric Murai, the game against Harbor High School on Friday, Oct. 21, will doubtlessly be one of those games.
Last August, following a stellar junior varsity career, Murai, a junior on the varsity squad, was preparing to head to Oregon to play against Amity High School in the Falcons’ 2010 preseason opener.
But before the trip, he was sidelined for a reason no one could have expected. Murai was diagnosed with a potentially deadly form of leukemia. He learned that instead of playing for the Falcons, he would be sent to Stanford Hospital’s oncology ward for cancer treatment.
Murai underwent six months of brutal chemotherapy and a month of combined chemo-radiation therapy. Then it was time for recovery. But it was not until Oct. 19 — just two days before the Falcon’s homecoming game — that Murai was cleared to play.
“They needed to test my bone density,” he said. “They had to see if my body could hold up against the kind of contact that is involved in a high school football game.”
When Murai took the field as a running back with three minutes left in the second quarter of Friday night’s game, the stands were packed. The Falcons had driven to the Pirates’ 1-yard line when head coach Louie Walters sent in Murai to punch in the score.
“If nothing else happened tonight, I wanted Eric Murai to score a touchdown,” Walters said. “He is just such a good kid who has gone through so much. Him scoring was definitely one of the highlights of my coaching career.”
Murai got the call and scampered through a big hole to score his first varsity touchdown on his first carry.
“I was so nervous,” Murai said. “I just wanted to make sure I held onto the ball. Scoring was just a bonus.”
It was a bonus Murai would earn a second time later in the quarter. The Falcons had driven to the Harbor 4-yard line when, with 51 seconds left in the first half, Murai bounced off a would-be-tackler and scored his second touchdown to make the halftime score 49-0.
“We wanted to get him more scores,” running back Victor Passanisi said, recalling a 7-yard touchdown he scored in the third quarter. “I was trying to fall down at the 1-yard line to set him up with another score but got tackled into the end zone.”
Murai finished the game with five carries for seven yards and two touchdowns — and a memory that will last a lifetime.
His cancer is in remission, and he will continue to play for the Falcons through the remainder of the season.
