All the Rage: Twelve Bridges roars into CIF State behind ‘unkempt’ coach and running back star
Chris Bean teaches history at Twelve Bridges High School, his classroom a haven for those who want to learn about civilizations from across the globe, the people, the leaders, the legacies.
Bean doubles as the spirited football coach for the rising-fast Raging Rhinos of Lincoln. He guides the hottest team in Placer County with the coolest mascot around, and it’s the only one left standing this in that football-rich region. How fitting that the teacher/coach is so big into history because what the football team has accomplished would send any history buff spinning.
This is not normal stuff brewing. With just its second senior class and third varsity team, Twelve Bridges is roaring along at 14-0 and finds itself competing on the season’s final day. The Raging Rhinos take on Palos Verdes of Los Angeles County on Saturday afternoon for the CIF State Division 2-A championship.
Kickoff is set for 11:30 a.m. at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, a day after the Grant Pacers compete for their third consecutive CIF state crown.
None of this magnitude is lost on Bean. He knows history, right on down to the championship programs in Sacramento, including Grant, and he does not take for granted his program’s rapid climb from new-school novelty to big-time player.
“I talk to my kids in class all the time, to try and give perspective, that there’s a new school called the Raging Rhinos with 1,275 kids, and they are playing in the grandest game, a CIF State final,” an excited Bean said Wednesday afternoon. “We get to represent our side of the state, our entire Placer County community, and we were chosen or selected or got here by fate or destiny or whatever, and it’s the coolest thing to see and experience.”
Twelve Bridges has earned every bit of this journey. This is no fluke season. It takes quite a program to go 14-0, especially a year after going 12-1 and graduating 18 starters.
So what do the Raging Rhinos do for an encore after turning heads in the state with their 2023 outfit? They trot out a better version, one for the ages on a campus that is still so new that the young tree roots are still taking hold.
Now Bean and the boys are filling the trophy case with championships: two league crowns, a CIF Sac-Joaquin Section blue banner and last week’s CIF NorCal conquest of Wilcox of Santa Clara — a thriller to the wire that advanced Bridges to this weekend’s date in Orange County.
“We try to sell the history of the school to our students, even as a brand-new school,” Bean said. “We say championship banners hang forever, and you can take your own kids into the gym some day and show them what you did. What’s your legacy? The most important one was the blue banner, the section title, and then everything else is gravy. Well, we might as well and finish this Hoosiers type of story the right way.”
‘Amazing what we’ve done’
How did a new school become so good and great so fast? It starts with a coach, and a coaching staff, and players. And administrative support and community backing.
Twelve Bridges has all of that. Home games are an event, packed with people lining the track. The freshman, junior varsity and varsity ranks have large rosters, as do the youth feeder programs that are coached by varsity players.
Football isn’t healthy at all places in the state, some dropping programs due to low numbers, but it’s booming in Lincoln, thanks in large part to a coach who booms of good cheer. There is never talk of outgoing transfers or incoming new faces because it simply doesn’t happen. These are local kids to the core.
“It’s amazing what we’ve done,” Bean said. “We’ve checked off all the boxes with support on campus and in the community, and then it’s up to the kids. We have another excellent group, and we have great athletes. It starts with them.”
Two of the top athletes are the best of friends in quarterback Connor Flaherty and running back Braeden Ward. Flaherty has passed for 2,660 yards and 26 touchdowns with just two interceptions, and Ward has bulled and sprinted his way to a record season, rushing for 2,571 yards and 39 touchdowns to lead all section runners.
Receiver Isaiah Rodriguez has 1,163 yards receiving and 14 TDs, lineman leader Colton Hogge has led the way in the trenches, and the defense has allowed 7or fewer points six times, including CIF Sac-Joaquin Section playoff efforts of 63-7 over Sierra of Manteca, 43-7 over Placer and 55-7 over Patterson in the section finals. The defense has been led by Chase Wyhlidko, Jameson Elmer, Darvin Markle and Ryan Wanger.
On Saturday, Bridges beat Wilcox of Santa Clara 28-27 in the Northern California title game, dancing as a last-play Chargers field goal just missed. Still, even the most optimistic seniors didn’t see this sort of season coming.
“Our whole team has been thinking about it,” Ward said. “We knew we’d have a good team, but we weren’t thinking state championship. But after Week 4, we definitely started to believe that we had something special going.”
Ward said after the emotional NorCal win: “Definitely a piece of history for us, a piece of history for this team, a piece of history for this town.”
Ward competes like a college prospect and wants to be one. He is a solidly built 5-foot-11 and 190 pounds, but he has not received an athletic scholarship from a Division I program. Not because he can’t play but because it’s a numbers game. A good student, Ward aspires to be a lawyer some day, to fight for fairness in a courtroom.
Flaherty is long and lanky at 6-3 and 190, and he, too, hopes to play college football. For now, the seniors are thinking of this weekend. They spend time in coach Bean’s history class to talk shop, to eat lunch, to pore over game film and to discuss legacy.
“We all love Coach Bean,” Ward said. “We can see how a loss affected him last year, how hard he takes it. He has that open-door policy in his classroom because that’s what kind of guy he is.”
Coach’s wife won’t let him cut his hair
Bean played quarterback at Colfax High School in the early 1990s, graduated from Chico State and got into teaching and coaching. He’s in his 25h year teaching English or History and coaching the finer points of blocking and tackling. Bean takes his teaching gig personal. It’s vitally important, he said. He is not just a football coach. He missed time last week as a teacher, battling an illness, and was glad to be back in the saddle this week.
Bean said he learned the value of teaching and coaching at Bear River High in Lake of the Pines from founding principal Dick Werntz. He gave Bean his first teaching gig. Bean has been known to “coach from bell to bell” by Twelve Bridges athletic director David Foxworthy.
“Mr. Werntz had such a profound impact on me, how to do things the right way,” Bean said.
Bean has been married 22 years to his bride, Jennifer. They have three kids, two of them in college and Addison at Twelve Bridges, where she is a cheerleader. If you think Bean is into football, get a load of his wife. There’s a reason Bean looks like he hasn’t cut his hair since early August, because it’s true.
“She’s my rock, my sounding board, and not once has she said that football coaching is too much, but she will not let me cut my hair because of superstition,” Bean said with a laugh. “As long as we’re winning, I can’t cut my hair. I look like the Hillside Stranger. I look unkempt.”
So there you have it. Twelve Bridges is working on a legacy of new-school excellence in football and the art of stacking championships. The coach leading the charge sounds the part of a proud leader and looks the part of superstition with his grayish long locks spilling out over his ears from under his green Raging Rhinos cap.
This story was originally published December 13, 2024 at 5:00 AM.