A special school spirit

Sister's death motivates Dracut star

Dracut QB Matt Grimard wears a bracelet on his wrist and a band above his elbow to honor his late sister. (File/Robert E. Klein/For the Globe)

DRACUT - Matt Grimard is 6 feet 4 inches, weighs 225 pounds, runs 40 yards in 4.8 seconds, and plays quarterback for Dracut High School. The Middies are 9-1 and visit Methuen tomorrow morning for their annual Thanksgiving game. Next week Dracut plays Acton-Boxboro in the Division 1A playoffs. A win puts them in the Super Bowl at Gillette Stadium.

Grimard is quite possibly the best high school football player in the state. College recruiters have been in touch, which is more than you can say for most of the defenders in the Merrimack Valley Conference. Dracut's big QB has run into the end zone 27 times this season. He scored six touchdowns against Billerica and another five against Tewksbury. Oh, and he has also thrown 15 TD passes.

Looks easy, right? Everybody's All-American. The perfect high school story. A kid grows up to be tall, handsome, and the best football player in the Commonwealth. Colleges court him while his classmates sweat through the application process, wondering whether they'll make the cut.

But we all know it's never that easy. Nobody gets everything. There's always adversity - even for the golden boy who shines under the Friday night lights.

All his teammates and classmates know what Grimard has been through. That's the way it works in towns like Dracut. A family tragedy is a community tragedy. Folks pull together and look out for one another.

Fifteen months ago, Matt's only sibling, his sister Samantha, got behind the wheel of a pickup truck with her boyfriend around 8:30 at night and crashed into a pine tree off Long Pond Road in Tyngsboro. Passenger Bryan Willett, 20, died instantly. Samantha was rushed to Lowell General Hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival. She was 18, and had been getting ready to start classes at UMass-Lowell. Police blamed the accident on excessive speed.

Matt was behind the counter at Palace Pizza that night. His mother was working nearby at her second job at Tedeschi's Market. When Lisa Grimard got off work, she drove to the pizza joint to wait for her son. Matt was only 16, still driving with a learner's permit, and he was going to drive them home. On the way, Matt got a call from one of Samantha's friends, indicating that Samantha had been in a bad accident. By the time they got to the scene, Samantha already had been taken to Lowell General. When Matt and his mom arrived at the hospital, they were told Samantha had died.

And then Matt had to tell his father the awful news.

"I'll never forget getting to the hospital," says Stephen Grimard, an iron worker who drove a UPS truck for 16 years. "Matt grabbed me and said, 'Dad, she's gone.' I was, like, 'What? No way!' I was freaking out. He grabbed me and held me down. That's the type of kid he is. I don't know how he does it."

In the first months after the accident, Grimard won the starting quarterback job at Dracut High and led the Middies to a 6-5 record. This year, under new coach Jeff Moore, Dracut played the toughest schedule in the state, beating out-of-conference powerhouses Brockton and St. John's Prep. They won their opener against the Boxers in Marciano Stadium. They beat the Prep in a midseason home game. They wiped out the entire Merrimack Valley Conference. Their only defeat was at Everett, 48-26.

"It was a 21-20 game at halftime," says Grimard. "But in the second half they ran the ball and shut down our offense."

No small task. The Middies play the spread formation most recently made famous by the Patriots at Miami. It's not unusual to see Grimard standing in an empty backfield working from the shotgun. When his receivers are covered, he's usually able to move the chains with his legs. He is a load. And he's fast.

On those rare occasions when Grimard is brought down, enemy linebackers and safeties get a close look at the green rubber bracelet on his wrist, and the white band around his elbow. The armband says, "RIP Sam." The bracelet reads, "I vow to drive safe for Samantha."

"It's about driving safe and remembering her," he says. "It's always in the back of your head. It changed me in some ways. It gives me the extra push and keeps me focused. It's a reality check."

"I think he believes that she's with him," says Stephen Grimard. "He visits her at the cemetery before every game and has his little chat with her. It's been rough.

"I've got to tell you, he's helped me out. He doesn't talk much about it, but he's been handling this very well. I think he unleashes his energy out on the field."

It's the power of family. And love. A force that can't be measured.

Dan Shaughnessy can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com.