JOHNSTON, S.C. â€” Jeff Calabrese strolled along the sideline. It was way too cold for shorts, but thatâ€™s what he wore, because thatâ€™s what he always wears, along with a black hoodie, black baseball hat and black sneakers.

He watched the game at the 35-yard line for a while, meandered to the 50, back to the 35. He talked with his offensive players between possessions, and he did all of this with the urgency of a man taking a walk in the park. Intense? No. Screaming? Never. Yelling? Not once. The head coach of the Hartsville (S.C.) Red Foxes gave no indication that his team was in the state high school semifinals.

Nor was there any sign how heavy his heart is with grief.

The most emotion he showed all game was when there was just less than a minute left. As a defender scooped up a fumble and sprinted 75 yards to seal an improbable comeback win, Calabrese allowed himself a fist pump.

Then another.

Then another.

Three fist pumps.

Three tragedies.

Hartsvilleâ€™s season will last one more week.

Its grieving will last longer.

The impact of Calabreseâ€™s leadership will last longer still.

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Hartsville had its homecoming game on Oct. 5. Late in the second quarter, senior center Ronald Rouse signaled for a timeout. The officials granted it. Rouse took a few steps toward the sideline and collapsed.

Four doctors and two trainers rushed onto the field. They removed Rouseâ€™s helmet, shoulder pads and shirt. They performed CPR as hundreds of fans watched in stunned silence. They revived him, and Rouse walked off the field.

On the sideline, Rouse talked to his father. He collapsed again. This time, doctors used a defibrillator. Rouse was on the ground, 10 feet from the cheerleaders. He was taken by ambulance to Hartsville's Carolina Pines Medical Center. Attempts to revive him failed, and he died in the emergency room. An autopsy determined the cause was sudden cardiac arrhythmia brought upon by a congenital enlarged heart.

Within minutes, news of his death reached Hartsvilleâ€™s Kellytown Stadium.

Darel Hance, whose son Ryan plays on the team, watched as Calabrese told his players that Rouse had died.

"The compassion, the love he showed them, it was unbelievable," says Darel Hance, who attends Sunday school with Calabrese. "From one kid to the next, from one kid to the next, checking on them to make sure they were OK."

As this unfolded in front of him, Hance wondered whether he would have reacted with as much grace as Calabrese did.

"How many men could really do that? In that moment? He loved them through it," he says. "Those young men witnessed a man that night. They got to see the true character of a man."

All of this goes far beyond football, and it's Calabrese's ability to reach students away from the field that Hartsville loves so much about him. But don't take that the wrong way. He's an Xs and Os guy, too. He played college football at Newberry College in Newberry, S.C., is in his eighth season as head coach of Hartsville and has been named coach of the year several times. His previous head coaching job was at West Florence (S.C.). The team had a 31-game losing streak when he took over in 2001. In 2003, he led them to the state championship game.

"South Carolina has the winningest coach of all time in coach McKissick down in Summerville," Hance says. John McKissick has 601 career wins. "I'd take Calabrese every day of the week and twice on Sundays."

â€” â€” â€”

Rouse was the third Hartsville High School student to die in just six months. Jymeke Sanders â€” a football player just weeks from graduation â€” died in his sleep in April. Bayy Eaddy died in a car crash in June. Rouseâ€™s death hit Hartsville particularly hard, in part because it was in public and in part because he was such a popular figure on and off the team. He was 6-4, 320 pounds with a personality every bit that big.

Calabrese was crushed and didn't pretend otherwise. He showed his players how to grieve and persevere at the same time. That is, he has showed them how to be human, to go through pain rather than around it.

"He's teaching them lessons without them knowing it," says Hartsville mayor Mel Pennington, who has been friends with Calabrese for years. "They may be champions. I hope to God they get there. I really do. But I hope more so, these kids leave this opportunity being stronger and all the better for everything they learned."

Calabrese has declined interview requests about this incredible season because he's not sure he can summon the right words to explain what has happened. He released a statement to the media a few days after Rouse's death that was heartbreakingly transparent.

"I need you all to understand that I really love our players," he wrote. "Our coaches love our players, and I believe our players love us. Ronald and I had an extremely close relationship. I have been absolutely devastated and have only been able to stand because of my trust in God. Telling our players of Ronald's death was the most excruciating thing I have ever had to do."

On the Sunday after Rouse died, Calabrese met with his players, coaches and a pastor at the school to discuss how to proceed. He emerged from that desperate meeting into a glorious fall day looking as if each step took all day to make. His players walked around the parking lot like they didn't know whether to stay or leave, and if they left where they should go.

Rouse's funeral was held inside the gymnasium, and the entire football team as well as some members of the opposing team from that night were there. So was Pennington, who runs a funeral home.

"The eulogy he gave was the most profound eulogy I have heard in a very long time," Pennington says.

There was never any doubt Hartsville would play out the season.

"With the boys, what he did is put this thought in their minds that we're never going to get him back, but the best thing we can do is honor the life he lived," Pennington says. "If you want to honor that loss of life, then you pour your heart and soul into everything he poured his heart and soul into."

That's easier to say than do, and it's nearly impossible to do well.

It's hard for players and coaches to care about football, let alone play it, when they are soaked with grief. Winning was beside the point, and Calabrese openly questioned whether he had adequately prepared his team to play. In his statement, he said, "The victory is in finding the courage and strength to take the field."

The Red Foxes played poorly in their first game back but eked out a win. They crushed their next opponent. Hartsville's third game after Rouse's death was the season finale against rival Darlington, an inferior team by far.

Strange things happen to the Red Foxes so often that fans coined a phrase for it: Phantom Foxes. The Darlington game provided the most glaring example.

The Red Foxes trailed at halftime.

They were a mess.

Then the lights went out.

And they wouldn't come back on.

The game resumed at noon the following day, and Hartsville pulled out a 33-30 win.

"People say they thought Ronald had something to do with the lights going out, because things just werenâ€™t going our way, and we needed to regroup," says Bob Braddock, a lifelong Hartsville resident whose two daughters thought of Rouse as a big brother.

â€” â€” â€”

After the win over Darlington, the Red Foxes rolled through the first three rounds of the playoffs with an average margin of victory of 31 points. But in the fourth quarter Friday night in Johnston, a small city west of Columbia, S.C., against the Strom Thurmond Rebels, the Hartsville season looked finished. Thurmond had a three-point lead and the ball inside the 5.

The Hartsville defense, however, stopped Thurmond on fourth-and-goal from the 2. The Hartsville offense drove 96 yards for a touchdown and four-point lead. Thurmond marched right back down to the red zone, but a sack led to a fumble, which Laquan Haigler returned 75 yards for a touchdown. He wasn't halfway to the end zone before the visiting stands â€” full to bursting with well more than 1,000 Red Fox faithful who made the two-hour trip â€” started shaking.

â€” YouTube video: Haigler's touchdown run | Game highlights from TV station WPDE

A few minutes later, the 20-10 win was complete, the team's undefeated season intact at 14-0. The win makes the Red Foxes "lower state" champions. They will play Union County High School, the "upper state" champions, for the South Carolina championship on Dec. 1 at the University of South Carolina's Williams-Brice Stadium.

After the game Friday night, Hartsville parents, players, coaches and fans gathered near the end zone for a prayer. Many of them wore red shirts with "Rouse 74" on the back. Someone carried a giant "Rouse" flag. Calabrese's wife, Jennifer, had tears streaking down her face.

Calabrese looked like a man shaken awake from a dream. Half the city, it seemed, stopped by to hug him. The other half waited in line for their turn.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Photos accompanying this story are from the Hartsville Messenger Facebook page.