How Carter Morse speaks of his late mother echos similarly to Akilotoa Kaumatule Jr.‘s words of the late father for whom he shares his name: Providers, protectors, fun-loving and strong-willed individuals who put family over everything.
The teens will tell you they’re a different breed because of what they lost years ago that eventually helped forge an unbreakable bond now as high school seniors and captains on Hudson’s Bay’s football team.
But football is easy. Football isn’t as tough as watching a loved one die of cancer, as Kaumatule’s father did in 2014, or a year earlier when organ failure claimed Morse’s mother before turning 40.
No, this football stuff is easy.
Morse and Kaumatule are four-year varsity football players on an Eagles’ football team that opens 3A Greater St. Helens League play at 8 tonight hosting Mountain View. The team is seeking its second victory on the season, but these two also seek out something greater every week prior to kickoff: Strength, power and love from above.
“That drives us to do better,” Morse said, “and try to succeed and not fall to the obstacles that’s thrown at us.”
Mother lost
Acute liver failure is what doctors told 38-year-old Nicole Morse, mother of two and stepmom of one, in late spring 2013. The news stunned a 12-year-old Carter, a sixth grader at Discovery Middle School, because the diagnosis came without warning and with just a 50 percent chance of survival.
She died less than a month later.
Anger built. So did guilt. Morse tried hard not to show it, but spent nights with pondering thoughts and questions starting with why.
That’s when football came in.
A ex-soccer player whose first love is baseball, Morse picked up football — the sport Nicole Morse never wanted her only son to play — months after her passing. A year later is when he and Kaumatule met in a much-anticipated eighth-grade football game between Discovery and McLoughlin middle schools featuring the future Bay players.
One play is still ingrained in their memories. It brings smiles to their faces.
“We hit each other as hard as we could,” Morse said. “That’s one of the biggest hit I’ve had in my life.”
Said Kaumatule: “We both fell forward.”
As it turned out, they had more in common than just football.
Father gone
Known as Toa by friends and family, the youngest of four siblings lost his father to liver cancer at 63. Just 13 at the time, Toa recalls a charismatic, caring parent who took pride in his Tongan heritage. Family meant everything to Akilotoa Kaumatule, Sr., and it rings true for his youngest son, who now looks up to two older brothers and a brother-in-law as father figures. All Kaumatule children have graduated or will graduate from Hudson’s Bay.
“My family has my back,” Kaumatule said, “no matter what.”
So does Bay. He also wrestles and Morse is a three-sport varsity athlete. Football is the only sport these two play together.
While each have lost a parent, they’re never short of supporters starting with a pregame routine at the end zone.
‘We play for them’
What started as a moment of honest and spontaneous emotions accelerated into a weekly tradition going strong since last season.
Sacred words are shared together in prayer minutes before kickoff give Morse and Kaumatule power and strength for how they play the game, and the love for whom they play for.
Morse has the date of his mother’s death tattooed on his right forearm in addition to a written scripture.
“People don’t experience what we go through unless you’ve gone through it,” Morse said. “It’s indescribable. It’s a reality check.
“We play for them, and we need to tell them.”
Morse, a wide receiver and cornerback, and Kaumatule, a middle linebacker and running back, have played for two different head football coaches in four years at Bay. Both are all-league players, including last season when Bay reached the postseason for the first time since 2001.
It’s the duo’s character and commitment that draws praise from senior quarterback Parker Marsh. But it’s their athleticism, too, that’s unmatched.
“They’re the elites,” Marsh said. “They don’t give up on anything. I’ve never seen them not make that needs to be made.
“Both have an inner demon that’s released on Friday nights.”
For Morse in particular, life recently threw another curveball. His father, Aaron, learned he had Stage 3 throat cancer earlier this month. He’s currently undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
Times aren’t easy, but Morse and Kaumatule are there for each other, as friends and teammates, finding the willpower to not only get through the day, but to do it with the same attitude when life came easily.
But life is not easy. Football, though, that comes easily.
Said Kaumatule: “At the end of the day, I’ll have this guy by my side. You know who we do this for. Let’s get it done and go to work.”
