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When Rick Prete returned from Iraq in 2009, he had just one focus: his family. Throughout his yearlong deployment as an infantryman in the Army, he could speak to his wife and daughter only sparingly over Skype.

Once he was home in Audubon, Montgomery County, he tried to spend as much time with them as possible. He took on day-to-day tasks with glee, like doctor’s appointments and school drop-offs. Prete didn’t see these as mundane. To him, they were opportunities.

“How can I be around my kid more?” he said. “That’s all I really cared about.”

It was this mentality that brought Prete to youth cheerleading practice in Conshohocken in the summer of 2010. For four nights a week, he would sit and watch 6-year-old Arianna’s routines as the 15-and-under football team did drills nearby.

Prete, a former wide receiver at Norristown High School and East Stroudsburg University, barely noticed that the players were there. But the Conshohocken Bears’ coaches noticed him, and quickly asked if he’d consider joining their staff.

Prete declined at first. The veteran was battling depression, he said, and worked late nights as an emergency room technician. Any free time he had, he wanted to spend with Arianna and his wife, Gabriela.

But after a few weeks, Prete warmed up to the idea. He would observe the team’s practices and suggest different defenses and coverages. Conshohocken added him as an assistant coach in August 2010, and he dove right in.

Gabriela noticed that Rick was happier and more talkative at home. She’d catch him poring over film and scribbling plays on napkins and notepads. Instead of thinking about what he’d seen in Iraq, he was thinking about how to help his players.

“I definitely saw a shift in him,” she said. “This was something that he loved, but he was also good at it. It was like an outlet.”

Prete’s coaching career took off from there. He was hired as a wide receivers/defensive backs coach at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School in 2012, and joined Malvern Prep’s staff as the freshman head coach in 2015. He was named the school’s varsity wide receivers coach in 2016, and Imhotep Charter hired Prete to serve as offensive coordinator in 2017.

In 2019, he became head coach of Roman Catholic High School’s football program, where he remains.

Prete has always said that he wouldn’t have found his calling without Arianna. Now the sport is healing him in her absence.

In the early morning of July 11, 2024, Arianna and a friend were riding in another friend’s Honda Odyssey when their vehicle collided with a tow truck at K Street and East Hunting Park Avenue in North Philadelphia.

According to the Philadelphia Police Department, the truck driver was speeding and blew through a red light. The minivan entered the intersection just as the traffic signal was turning from yellow to red.

Arianna was ejected forward from the backseat. She suffered severe injuries and was taken to Temple University Hospital, where she was pronounced dead less than an hour later.

She was 19, and the only fatality from the crash.

Court records show that the driver of the tow truck, Omar Morales, was charged with homicide by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter, and four related offenses.

Charlie Payano, the friend driving the Odyssey, was charged with homicide by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter, and three related offenses.

The trial is scheduled to start soon.

Prete’s initial instinct was to quit football altogether. He barely had enough energy to get out of bed, let alone handle a group of teenagers.

But Gabriela urged him to return to Roman Catholic. More than a year since the crash, he’s glad he did.

“I don’t know if I’d be able to sit here right now, and go forward throughout a day,” Prete said, “if I didn’t have those kids.”

A football and softball bond

Arianna and Rick always connected over sports. She was a self-described “girly girl” who loved the color pink, romantic comedies, and Bruno Mars, but also a natural athlete like her father.

She signed up for T-ball when she was 6 and switched over to travel softball not long after. Norristown Recreation didn’t have an under- 10 team at the time, so Arianna played with 10-, 11-, and 12-year-olds.

Despite facing pitchers far older, she made contact regularly and quickly emerged as a hitter to watch. Rick, who played baseball in high school and college, began to train with her.

Arianna would take 100 swings off the tee every day. Sometimes, her father would throw soft toss in the backyard. When she switched from third base to catcher at age 10, Rick started challenging her behind the plate.

He’d spike softballs in the dirt, or pitch them high above, forcing his daughter to shift and block. By age 12, they were flipping tires and swinging sledgehammers in the driveway.

“[Softball] was a huge part of our relationship,” he said. “That was my avenue to learn how to be her dad.”

Arianna felt equally invested in Prete’s coaching career. When she was a student at Methacton High School, from 2019 to 2023, she would spend Friday nights with the football team at Roman Catholic.

In the school’s 2019 season opener, on Aug. 24, the Cahillites found themselves down 26-0 in the first quarter to Pope John Paul II. By halftime, they’d narrowed their deficit to 11 points.

The team kept chipping away, and with 1 minute, 30 seconds to go, quarterback Jayden Pope threw a 50-yard touchdown pass to earn Roman a 47-46 comeback win.

Prete still has the film from that night. In the background, Arianna is on the sideline, sprinting toward wide receiver Malachi Harris, who made the game-winning catch.

“You couldn’t tell that girl that she wasn’t an assistant coach,” Gabriela said. “She liked the energy. Running up and down the field with the other coaches. You would always find her there.”

Prete’s teams went 10-28 over his first four seasons, but over time, he built a strong program. The Cahillites posted a 9-3 record in both 2022 and 2023.

In 2023, in the District 12 Class 5A championship game, Roman Catholic lost to Imhotep Charter, the eventual state champion, by only 4 points.

With more success came more commitment, so Prete would always check to make sure that Arianna and her younger sister, Nylah, were comfortable with him coaching. After a while, the question became redundant. The answer was always yes.

“They’d both say, ‘No, you go coach,’” Prete said. “‘We want you to.’”

Arianna graduated from Methacton in 2023. She enrolled at Montgomery County Community College in the fall of that year, and took a real estate course in the spring, but was unable to pass the state exam. She planned to return to Montco in September.

The former softball player had always loved working with kids, so she thought about becoming a teacher. Or maybe going back to real estate school, to retake her test. But these possibilities, once filled with promise, came to an abrupt halt on July 11, 2024.

Rick and Gabriela heard a knock at about 3:30 a.m. Two Lower Providence Township police officers were standing outside their door.

They told the Pretes about the collision and instructed them to go to Temple University Hospital Jeanes Campus, in Fox Chase, to identify Arianna’s body.

But once they arrived, their daughter wasn’t there.

“It gives you a glimmer of hope,” Gabriela said. “Maybe they got this wrong.”

In an email, Lower Providence Police Chief Michael Jackson said that the officers received their information from a victims’ advocate at Temple University Hospital.

The parents finally reached Temple’s main hospital, on North Broad Street, at about 7 a.m., and realized that the victim was indeed their daughter.

“Your body shuts down,” Rick said. “Your mind goes numb. It’s your worst nightmare being realized.”

‘I feel your pain, Coach’

The next few days were a blur. The Pretes called as many family members as they could. A steady stream of visitors came through the house to share condolences, with flowers and food in hand.

Roman Catholic was scheduled to go to a three-day team camp at East Stroudsburg on the day of Arianna’s passing. But Prete was not in any shape to attend and arranged for offensive coordinator Marcus Hammond to take the team instead.

Two days later, the Cahillites finished their visit and piled into two yellow school buses. The drivers were supposed to head back to campus, but the students had a different idea.

The team went to the coach’s house in Audubon. More than 50 players gathered on his lawn, took a knee, and began to sing Roman Catholic’s fight song.

Prete stood on his porch, buried his head in his hands, and cried.

“Thank you,” he said. “Now, give me a … hug.”

Gabriela ordered some pizzas. A few players pulled Rick aside to say a prayer. One student, 17-year-old quarterback Semaj Beals, shared that he’d lost his sister Dymond in 2014. She was 8, and died by suicide.

“I feel your pain, Coach,” Beals said. “And if you need anything, if you need to talk to me, I’m here.”

Prete hugged him tight.

“I know you do,” he replied.

For many of the Cahillites, Prete has been like a second father. He’d lend them food and gas money. If they lived far away from the school, at Broad and Vine, he’d arrange for alternate transportation.

The coach would regularly check on his players’ mental health and always made sure their grades weren’t slipping. There were conversations about schemes and formations, but also about how to treat a young woman, how to plan for their future, and how to handle a difficult situation at home.

Lou Gaddy, a Roman Catholic graduate who is now a freshman safety at Stony Brook University, is the first person in his family to go to college. He received a full scholarship.

Gaddy grew up in Burlington County in South Jersey and is unsure if he would have made it if he hadn’t played for Roman Catholic.

“Who knows if I’d develop the way I did,” he said. “The [Philadelphia Catholic League] is a much stronger conference than where I live. It’s way more work. It requires more out of you. Long days, late nights.

“But Coach Prete definitely knew what he was doing. He’s sent countless amounts of kids to college. Countless.”

Because of this connection, the players felt Arianna’s death on a deeper level. Some saw Prete, overwhelmed by grief, and felt as if they were watching their own parent cry for the first time.

Their coach was the one who fixed problems for them. Now, he was distraught. He struggled to focus. His attention to detail wasn’t the same.

Prete was reluctant to return to Roman Catholic. He struggled to just get through a day. But Gabriela insisted he go back. The couple had already been robbed of their daughter. She didn’t want him to lose his career, too.

He rejoined his team in August 2024. It was a challenging adjustment. There were days when players asked if Prete was OK, only to hear him say, “No.” The coach began wearing sunglasses during games and practices, day and night, because he couldn’t hold back his tears.

Prete was in charge of the defense, but at times, he struggled to call plays. So, his players would call them for him.

“They’d bail me out,” Prete said. “Lou [Gaddy] would literally line the defense up. And he would just make sure the defense had the plays that they needed. And he’d do it right.

“All of the kids did that, because they knew that I’d be gone sometimes.”

Gaddy would also make sure that his teammates understood the playbook and handled any adjustments that needed to be made on defense. Beals compared him to a “coach on the field.”

“It was just to take the stress off,” Gaddy said. “Semaj made sure the offense was in check. And that’s kind of how I was with the defense. Making sure people were attacking the field the right way.”

Players who previously sat out practices became regular participants. They were more efficient in their workouts and pushed themselves harder than before.

The team discovered a greater purpose beyond competing for district titles or a state championship. The season was no longer about them. It was about their coach.

“Sometimes, when things happen like that, a head coach will step away,” Beals said. “But Coach Prete was there the whole way. So, we just felt like that was special. We needed to do something for him.”

Roman began to win — a lot. The Cahillites didn’t lose until Week 5 when the team played DeMatha, a high school powerhouse out of Hyattsville, Md.

The games were competitive, but with soulful moments of humanity throughout. Opposing coaches would give Prete prayer cards when they shook hands. In September 2024, before Roman Catholic played A.P. Randolph Campus High School in New York, a referee walked up to him.

He told Prete that he’d also lost a child. As they talked, a rainbow appeared over the field. To Rick and Gabriela, the 2024 campaign was full of moments like these. Moments that felt as if their daughter was with them.

It could be as subtle as a seeing a butterfly on the field. Or hearing a song on the way to a game. Or noticing that the players had written “LLA” — Long Live Arianna — on their helmets, compression sleeves, and wristbands.

An already special season reached a new height in December, when Roman Catholic advanced to the state championship for the first time in school history. With an 11-4 record, the Cahillites had plowed through the district playoffs to face Bishop McDevitt of Harrisburg in the final.

On a brisk night in central Pennsylvania, Roman Catholic rallied from a 21-3 deficit to tie the score at 31 and push the game into overtime. The Cahillites fell just short of a championship, losing to McDevitt on a field goal, but Prete was filled with pride.

“I don’t want to say it was magical,” he said, “but that team became so close. And it really felt like my kid was right there. Like my kid was literally right next to me.”

Coaching with purpose

The Prete house is quiet now. Arianna’s laugh is no longer ringing through the halls. Her parents don’t hear her feet stomping along the floor upstairs, or her shrill voice singing to Bruno Mars.

Gabriela thinks about her daughter constantly. Sometimes, when Rick is sitting in his living room chair, late at night, he looks toward the door, expecting Arianna to open it.

There are little signs of normalcy. Last year, Gabriela started seeing Rick’s trail of football plays again. He would leave them all over the house, on napkins and notepads, just like he did before his daughter’s passing.

Football won’t bring her back. It won’t diminish the family’s grief. But Roman Catholic gives them a community. It gives Gabriela and Nylah a place to be on Friday nights.

It gives Rick a task; three or four hours that aren’t spent asking questions he can’t answer. A task that fills him with purpose.

“I didn’t know how much energy I have left to give anybody,” Prete said. “But [the players] help get me out of bed. They put things in perspective. That we still have a family, that our family still does have a future.

“That we need to pour into what’s here, and to be present, for Arianna. We can’t live in a standstill. And seeing people accomplish their goals. … It’s always been something we’ve wanted, but now that is what it’s all about. You know?”