Friends, family remember ‘gentle giant’

Christine Carrillo

Sean Fenton loved key lime pies.

More than that, he loved to make them and give them to people who

would appreciate his baking effort.

While the former football player and track and field star at

Corona del Mar High School was not well known for his skills in the

kitchen, the 20-year-old Newport Beach resident certainly made a

long-lasting mark in the classroom, on the field and in the hearts of

almost everyone he met.

Fenton was known in the Newport-Mesa community for his athletic

prowess and intelligence and carried those traits with him to Yale

University, where the junior computer science major played for two

years on the football team.

“He was a gentle giant and he never took his size for granted,”

said Sean’s father, Robert Fenton. “Sean bridged the gap between

athletes and non-athletes.”

On Friday morning, Sean Fenton was killed after the sports utility

vehicle he was driving struck a flatbed tractor-trailer that lost

control and jackknifed on Interstate-95 in Connecticut. Fenton, who

was acting as the designated driver for eight of his fellow

fraternity brothers, was one of the four young men killed in the

crash that left five others injured.

“Sean Fenton was an outstanding human being in every way,” said

James Tomlin, his former advanced placement U.S. history teacher at

Corona del Mar High. “He was as at home with adults as he was with

his peers ... He was the kind of individual the world can least

afford to lose.”

While the Newport Beach community made its mark on Fenton, he also

had an undeniable effect on the community as well.

“We’ve just all been kind of heartbroken,” said Bill Sumner,

Fenton’s former track and field coach. “He was just a special kid.

You get a kid like that every 10 years.”

Proving to be a gifted scholar, talented athlete and reliable

friend, Fenton’s life touched nearly everyone that crossed his path,

a fact that his unexpected death illuminated.

As their home has filled with reflections of the community’s pain,

the Fenton family -- Sean’s father Robert, mother Janice and younger

brother Avery -- struggles to deal with the consequences of an event

they view as unpreventable.

“He could see the good in people and he looked past the

idiosyncrasies we all have,” Robert said. “He was a gem and he saw

through the triviality of things at a very early age.”

Not one to let stereotypes dictate his direction or determine his

fate, Sean Fenton was known for putting his every effort into

everything he did.

“There was always a work ethic he had of working ahead of time,”

said Dick Freeman, the football coach at Corona del Mar High. “He put

a lot effort to reach his goals and would go above and beyond that.”

While Sean worked hard at achieving his goals and bettering

himself, he never seemed to have forgotten where he came from or who

he learned from.

Taking time out of his vacation to visit his former coaches and

help out training other athletes at the high school, Fenton could

still be found, even years after his graduation, in the weight room.

And that’s precisely where his family plans to honor him.

Services for Fenton will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday outside the

field house at Corona del Mar High. The family requests that

attendees wear casual attire, as that’s how they believe he would

have wanted it.

* CHRISTINE CARRILLO may be reached at (949) 574-4268 or by

e-mail at [email protected].