The horrific San Bruno pipeline explosion Sept. 9, 2010 not only destroyed the home of Adam Tafralis' parents, Gregg and Mary, but indirectly ended Adam's Canadian Football League career.
The former star Mills High School and San Jose State quarterback left the Toronto Argonauts after the catastrophe to help his father with his myriad medical problems and the litigation stemming from the blast that left eight dead and more than three dozen homes destroyed.
"It stopped by career which was unfortunate," said Tafralis who has recently moved to San Jose and taken a new job with Valley Christian School. "But I will always choose family over career. My family needed me home to deal with the litigation and to help with my dad after the fire."
Out of the ashes has come an exciting opportunity for Tafralis, the San Mateo County Athlete of the Year as a senior at Mills. Tafralis will become the human performance director for a new on-campus center that will train the mind, body and spirit of each of the school's athletes.
"It's awesome," Tafralis said. "In addition to the normal weight room stuff and the bigger, faster, stronger, we'll be focusing on functional mobility, nutrition and supplemental mind training."
Tafralis has ample experience training athletes. He is one of the coaches of Elite 11, the televised training program for top high school quarterbacks run by ESPN's Trent Dilfer. Dilfer is a Super Bowl-winning quarterback who played at Aptos High.
The finals of Elite 11 begin June 28 at Nike Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. Among the lucky 11 are Bellarmine College Prep's KJ Carta-Samuels and Palo Alto's Keller Chryst.
"I love that dude," Carta-Samuels said of Tafralis. "He realizes that every quarterback has different things they need to work on. He has helped me personally with my footwork -- a lot which has made me quicker -- but also by doing that he has made my arm stronger and more accurate."
Following the pipleline explosion, Tafralis and his sister Alexa also revived their father's dormant personal training business, Team TAF.
Operating out of a gym in San Carlos owned by former pro quarterback John Paye, Tafralis and his sister began training professional athletes and budding pros, helping them to build speed, strength, agility and maximizing their ability to compete.
Then came the Elite 11, a chance to convey all he had learned at his various stops, including a short stint with the Indianapolis Colts where Tafralis was able to learn from the master, Peyton Manning.
"I learned a lot from coach (Dick) Tomey at San Jose State and from playing behind Peyton," Tafralis said. "He is so diligent and meticulous about everything he does."
None of this appeared to be on the horizon that Thursday night in 2010 when Gregg Tafralis, a Capuchino High grad and shot putter for the U.S. who finished ninth in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, sat down to watch a National Football League game on television.
Just as Gregg got comfortable, the pipeline ruptured 400 feet away. He fought off the smoke and fire to hurtle his then-300-pound body through a burning front door, but fractured a hip, injured his knee and suffered severe burns in the process. He required five surgeries and is part of a large lawsuit with other affected San Bruno families against PG&E.
"It's been taxing mentally," Adam Tafralis said. "Our house was right in the line of the fire. We lived on the corner of Glenview, a few hundred feet from the origin of the fire and my dad was inside. He's doing OK now. He has a new hip and has had some skin grafts. Fortunately my mom wasn't home and my sister was headed home but had turned around for some reason. I hate to think what could have happened."
Miraculously, it all seems to have worked out for Adam Tafralis and his loved ones. He has the new job at Valley Christian, the high-profile gig with Elite 11 and now lives near Branham High in San Jose with his wife Jessica and new baby girl Claire who was born this week. Tafralis' parents live just a few miles away, also in San Jose.
Now with the trials of the past few years mostly behind him, Adam Tafralis can concentrate on the task at hand -- squeezing every ounce of ability out of Valley Christian and Elite 11 athletes.
"All of this has been an eye opener," he said. "I feel blessed that my family is now together and settled in once place and I can focus on helping young athletes get to the next level."
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Reach John Murphy at jmurphy@Prep2Prep.com. Follow him on Twitter @PrepCat
