Casa Grande senior project remembers James Forni, beautifies campus

A group of eight Casa Grande High School students are providing the school with both a memorial to a favorite son and a much-needed physical improvement while learning a real-life lesson in the process.

When they conceived of a senior project to honor Casa Grande’s beloved coach James Forni, who died last June at age 35, the students - JJ Anderson, Stephen Proctor, Shane Ghiringhelli, Kaleo Garrigan, Nic Petri, Connor Hanley, Dylan Roberts and Jimmy Burggraf ­- planned a statue of the Casa coach who had touched the lives of so many students and adults.

As the eight discussed the project, it evolved into a walking path through the open space that runs alongside the locker rooms and is a shortcut to the Coach Ed Iacopi Gymnasium. Project Vincero was born.

In the winter, the adobe area is a muck of gooey mud and in the summer it bakes into a cracked eyesore.

“That area was one of his pet peeves,” explained Garrigan.

“He hated that all the mud and dirt got tracked into the gym,” added Petri.

Centerpiece of the walkway will be an 8-foot tall polished silver V for “Vincero,” Italian for “I will win,” or perhaps more appropriately, “The will to win.” Vincero became the rallying cry for Forni and his family, friends and supporters during his long fight with the cancer that eventually took his life. Since his passing, it has come to symbolize not only Forni’s fighting spirit, but everything that made him special to so many people.

Once the seniors decided on the exact nature of the project, the planning and detail work really began, and they came face-to-face with the real world.

“Our first thought was that it was going to be pretty easy,” said Anderson. But it turned out to be a lot more complicated than just pouring some concrete and setting up the Vincero sculpture.

“We spent a lot of time just getting every thing cleared,” Anderson added.

“It has really been an eye opener seeing how many things had to come together,” Petri added. “We had to deal with a lot of other peoples’ schedules.”

It also took approval from a lot of different people, not only at the school, but also from the school district. Once the students had the plans approved by district operations manager Jamie King and the OK of Superintendent Gary Callahan, the other approvals went more smoothly.

It also became apparent to the organizers that they weren’t going to be able to do the project themselves. To do what they envisioned would take more skill, effort and funds than they could provide. They reached out to the community and discovered two things: 1) There were a lot of people willing to help; and 2) When people found out that it was to honor James Forni, no one said no.

“It wasn’t just people from Petaluma,” noted Ghiringhelli. “It was people from all over the Bay Area. Everybody knew James Forni.”

Much of the money needed for the project came through a Go Fund Me page where the developers have collected more than $4,500. But that is only a fraction of what it would have cost had contractors and suppliers not donated or deeply discounted their contributions. One contractor estimated that, if the students had paid full value for the project, it would have cost about $20,000.

The students had hoped to have the project completed by the final home basketball game of the season, Senior Night, on Feb. 10.

That didn’t happen, but, despite nearly three months of wet weather, the seniors are getting close.

Biggest job to be finished is to install a base for specially chosen wood chips that hopefully will not cling to shoes and be tracked into the gym.

All eight of the project coordinators agree that the project has turned out to be much bigger than they could have imagined, but they also agree that it was more than worth every hour they have devoted to the cause.

“It is a way to do something for the school that will last,” said Proctor.

“It is something that will be here for us to remember. It is something that someday we can take our own kids to see,” said Garrigan.