Bloody but Unbowed : After Being Beaten and Stabbed, Vaughan Focuses on Football

TUSTIN —  Ruben Vaughan, defensive end and poet, stood up to face his teammates. This was his first week of action for Foothill High School, his adopted school. His first game. His first pregame meal.

The end-of-meal entertainment, the Knights’ weekly pregame ritual, had bailed. Team captains were searching for a stand-in. They asked Vaughan to recite a poem.

“I wrote it down real quick,” said Vaughan, a sophomore. “I talked about not giving up. I talked about staying with it until the end. I talked about hanging in there, no matter how down you are.”

Words for his team and words for himself.

Vaughan has hung in there and stayed with it. He was beaten and stabbed in August, a victim of a racial attack, according to his stepfather and others.

He spent four days in the hospital. He left Santa Margarita High School. He had physical and emotional scars.

Vaughan was down, all right. Who wouldn’t have been? Yet there was a focal point for him.

“I was going to get back to football as soon as possible,” he said. “I wanted to prove to everybody that I couldn’t be kept down.”

He finished reading the poem. After the applause ended, the players left.

“Ruben went above the moment,” Foothill

Coach Tom Meiss said. “It sounded like he was talking about himself. He has overcome personal setbacks. But he was also talking about the team. The team should become the individual.”

And Vaughan would rather talk about the team.

It has been nearly two months since he was attacked. He is trying to deal with emotions that no one, especially a 16-year-old, should have to deal with. So who can blame him for wanting to talk football?

“People want to bring it up all the time,” Vaughan said of the attack. “That’s the hardest thing. I really don’t want to talk about it.”

So let’s talk football.

*

Vaughan, who lives near the school, transferred to Foothill in early September. He was still recovering from a broken jaw, which had been wired shut, and stab wounds, one of which nearly severed the artery in his neck.

Yet, on Sept. 16, he played against Woodbridge. A week later, he started against Newport Harbor.

Vaughan swooped into the backfield to make a tackle for a loss early in the game. He got up, yelled and growled .

“The ref told me to cool it down,” Vaughan said. “I said I was sorry and that I was just real excited.”

Vaughan was back.

Football has always been important to Vaughan. His father, Ruben Vaughan II, was a defensive lineman for the Raiders and San Francisco 49ers. Ruben began playing at 7, in youth leagues. He said his mother saw how aggressive he was and thought it best to get him in football.

“He was bigger than most kids and I think that drew him to football faster,” said Melvin Aaron, Vaughan’s stepfather.

Said Vaughan: “I loved the game from the first moment I played.”

Loved it so much, he’d do anything to play.

Youth leagues have weight limits to balance the competition. For Vaughan, it was always a struggle to keep under the maximum.

He would skip dinner the night before games. Then he would skip breakfast. All to make the weigh-in before each game.

“When I started taking laxatives, my mom said, ‘Enough,’ ” Vaughan said. “That was too much.”

Vaughan, who was 6 feet 3, 225 pounds heading into this summer, stopped playing for two years, until he was a freshman at Santa Margarita.

He worked out one day with the Eagle freshman team. The next day, Coach Jim Hartigan asked Vaughan to join the varsity.

“Ruben caught our attention,” Hartigan said. “He had physical presence. We thought he was ready to play varsity immediately.”

They thought correctly.

“When we heard that Ruben was coming to Foothill, we got out a Santa Margarita game film from last season,” Meiss said. “Ruben was the best defensive player on the field that night.”

It wasn’t always so easy. Vaughan struggled at first. He had raw ability but lacked experience.

“He was bounced around like he was in a pinball machine the first game,” Hartigan said. “I remember when he first came out, he had every pad imaginable. He looked like the Michelin man. As the season wore on, he wore fewer and fewer pads. You could tell he was adjusting to the level.”

Vaughan, who played tight end and defensive end, caught his first touchdown pass against Tustin. He knelt in the end zone and prayed.

“Things were going so well,” Vaughan said.

He had no way of knowing.

*

Vaughan can’t escape the memories.

“He’s dealing with it the best he can,” Aaron said. “In some ways, his youth helps him. It’s still setting in. As he grows older, he will begin to understand the scenario better.”

Said Vaughan: “It seems like every little thing makes me remember.”

Vaughan said he was given directions to a party in Portola Hills by a classmate in August. When he arrived, he said a mob was there.

“About 30 people surrounded me,” Vaughan said. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

Vaughan suffered a broken nose, a broken jaw and several stab wounds. His attackers shouted racial slurs, according to witnesses.

Four have been arrested. The district attorney’s office is not prosecuting the case as a hate crime at this time. Officials said there was insufficient evidence that the attack was racially motivated. But the case is still under investigation.

Vaughan said he was set up, possibly by some of his own classmates.

Aaron and others said they believe the incident was racially motivated. During a preliminary hearing, Municipal Judge Pamela L. Iles urged prosecutors to consider filing hate-crime charges.

“I remember sitting down in shock,” he said. “A neighbor came over and asked me if I was all right. I remember the ambulance coming and I looked up in a daze.”

Vaughan left Santa Margarita because his family felt it was no longer safe there.

“There were people there who may not like me and this could happen again,” Vaughan said. “I don’t want to make it sound like Santa Margarita is a bad school. I loved playing for Coach Hartigan and I have a lot of friends there. It’s just a small percentage.”

Said Aaron: “Ruben feels fortunate to be alive.”

*

The plate in Vaughan’s jaw will remain. But the other physical damage has healed.

Vaughan was back working out two weeks after leaving the hospital.

It was tough at first. His jaw was wired shut, which prevented him from breathing hard. The stab wounds ached.

But he was determined.

“There are those he believes tried to prevent him from playing football,” Aaron said. “That has given him a new drive. I notice more enthusiasm. He attacked the game.”

Vaughan had lost 20 pounds and a lot of upper body strength. He lifted weights and ate to regain what he lost.

The raw ability was there.

“He has those long arms,” Meiss said. “When he grabs you, you’re done.”

Vaughan was cleared to play Sept. 12. He began full contact that day. He played that Friday.

“I was tired of watching,” Vaughan said. “I was ready to hit.”

The other scars, the ones inside, have not mended as easily.

“I’ve seen mood swings I didn’t see before,” Aaron said. “But can you fault him? It’s easy for him to get down and become despondent, But mostly he keeps things upbeat. I find that healthy.”

Poetry has helped, some. Vaughan began writing a year ago, jotting down his views and emotions.

“I’ll write about one a week,” Vaughan said. “I get feelings and I try to put them into words. I just get things off my mind.”

Vaughan has written about the attack, trying to exorcise it. He said it has helped only a little.

“I just want to put it behind me,” Vaughan said. “But it’s never going to be behind me. It’s going to be a part of me the rest of my life.

“Writing about it helps some. But for the anger and frustration, I have football.”