The thing everyone seems to miss is the smile.
No matter what was going on, Dominic Peterson was all smiles. Saint Mary's Men's Rugby Head Coach Tim O'Brien indulged in a bit of self-teasing, saying "I'll get annoyed with things and all I could say to Dom was, 'stop smiling so much!'"
Hard days, easy days ... always rugby days, Dom was smiling.
As reported in GRR and elsewhere, Dominic Peterson was running the standard back-to-training two-mile run at Saint Mary's when he collapsed, and despite heroic efforts from his teammates and from first responders, died.
Peterson was an outstanding rugby player. He was on the CRAA U19 team that won the RAN U19 Championships, playing both lock and flanker. Entering into his sophomore season he was set to get significant A-side minutes. He was fit, in the top five on the team on that two-mile run, and loved to train.
After his death the Peterson family said in interviews that Dominic had been working out and training all summer.
"At this point, we don't actually know the technical component of his passing, so that's something we have great interest in because he was such a fit kid," his father, Robert Peterson, told CBS News, adding that Dominic had spent “all summer running every hill in our neighborhood.”
But on that run at Saint Mary's he was dropping behind a bit. Then, with about 200 meters to go in the run, he started to stagger, and he felt. Last year's team captain, Mario Storti, was accompanying the runners on a bike as he is recovering from an injury. A trained lifeguard, Storti leapt into action to help. Dominic got up, and then fell again. Storti began CPR and players called 911. EMTs, in a truck driven by a former Cal rugby player, arrived within five minutes.
But he was, tragically, beyond saving. No one in such a situation could have received faster care, and he was gone anyway.
O'Brien Moves Quickly
In a situation like this, it is traumatic when a young teammate or friend dies, but it is even more so when you see it happen. Standing in the waiting room in the hospital, seeing the tragedy unfold, O'Brien moved quickly to alleviate further pain. He called a friend who was an expert in the grief counseling field. "We need help, now," he said.
"It's been hard on the guys," said club president Andrew Jullien. "It's definitely makes you put life in perspective. I hope no one else has to go through that experience."
Dominic died on Friday, September 4. O'Brien spoke with campus chaplain Fr. B. Kwame Assenyoh about holding a meeting at the Saint Mary's Chapel the next morning. That quickly became a full Catholic mass, which was packed with Saint Mary's people, those from East Palo Alto Rugby where Dominic played as a high-schooler, and more.
The players were immediately funneled into grief counseling. The counseling groups were split into different classes so the groups could be smaller.
The importance O'Brien's quick action to get his players counseling can hardly be overstated. No player was left alone with the pain. Instead, the benefit of being in a group like a rugby team was leveraged—they came together, as you imagine they would, but O'Brien also made sure they had help.
"I's incredible," said this season's captain, Matthew Abbes. "At 19 you're just getting going in life. He was passionate about what he did. It doesn't have to be rugby, but when you're in a group when you spend a lot of time together, you become really close. It's a struggle."
Abbes, as captain, opted to sit in the grief counseling sessions with the sophomores, the year Dominic was in. It was a thoughtful move by him as he recognized that this was the group hit the absolute hardest.
Pretty soon, the questions started to come up. Do we take a break. Do we stop training for a couple of weeks?
