Former CdM High star killed in auto accident

Barry Faulkner

Sean Fenton, a former straight-A student, star football player,

shot putter and discus thrower at Corona del Mar High, who was a

junior at Yale University, was killed Friday morning when a sport

utility vehicle he was driving struck a flatbed tractor-trailer on

I-95 in Connecticut, near the Bridgeport-Fairfield town line. He was

20.

Reportedly returning from a Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity event

in New York, the northbound SUV containing nine people struck the

rear of a northbound tractor-trailer, according to Connecticut State

Police. The tractor-trailer had lost control, jackknifed, partially

crossed the center barrier and collided with two southbound vehicles,

before coming to rest in the path of the SUV. The accident occurred

shortly after 5 a.m. EST.

Kyle Burnat, 19, a sophomore pitcher on the Yale baseball team,

and Andrew Dwyer, 20, were also killed.

Eric Wenzel, the MVP of the school’s lacrosse team, was in

critical condition Friday at Bridgeport Hospital. Nicholas Grass, a

sophomore baseball player, and Brett Smith, a freshman quarterback,

were hospitalized with serious injuries. Three others in the SUV were

hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.

Josh Yelsey, a CdM alumnus who runs for the Yale track and field

team, said the New Haven, Conn. community was in shock over the

tragedy when reached by phone on campus Friday.

Shock also swept the Corona del Mar campus, where rumors of an

accident involving Fenton were confirmed by the afternoon.

Bill Sumner, who coached Fenton on the track and field team at

CdM, said Fenton was a special young man, who frequently stopped by

campus to visit when he was home from school.

“He was a nice kid with a ton of talent, but more than his talent,

I remember the person,” Sumner said. “He was a nice guy first, a

student second and an athlete third. On the scale of one to 10, he

was a 9.5 as an athlete, so that tells you how good of a person and

student he was.”

CdM football coach Dick Freeman, for whom Fenton was a first-team

All-Pacific Coast League and All-Newport-Mesa offensive tackle, at

6-foot-4, 255 pounds, during his senior season in 1999, also spoke of

Fenton’s maturity and his drive to succeed, both in the classroom and

on the field.

“He was a hard-working guy who was very intelligent,” Freeman

said. “I remember, as a freshman, he was saying he wanted to go to

Harvard or Yale and he worked hard to make sure it happened. He took

all the tough classes, the advanced placement classes, and had a 4.0

GPA. He was always prepared for football and for school. He was

everything you’d ever want in a student-athlete.”

Yelsey, who grew up playing youth baseball with Fenton, said he

learned he had been admitted to Yale when Fenton called him from New

Haven after checking with coaches two days before the admissions were

announced. “We crossed paths every once in awhile on campus and he

was always someone worth stopping and talking to,” Yelsey said. “The

fraternity he was in was a very popular one here. It was the same one

(President George W. Bush and his father, former President George

H.W. Bush, both Yale alums) were in.”

Fenton was a redshirt in the football program as a freshman at

Yale, but was not listed on the roster the last two seasons. Freeman

said Fenton had told him he gave up football to concentrate on

academics.

Fenton won the Pacific Coast League title in the discus his junior

and senior year at CdM and was also the league shot put champion in

2000. He was ninth in the shot put at the CIF Southern Section

Division III Finals his senior season.

Fenton’s parents, Bob and Janice, were reportedly traveling to

Connecticut Friday and could not be reached.

In a press release, police said the accident remains under

investigation. Police said other accidents had occurred on 1-95, the

main highway along the Connecticut shoreline, early Friday morning.

There was snow on the road at the time of the accident.