Twins Who Are Long Shots To Make 49Ers Learn About Long Odds From Their Mom

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - The telephone answering machine at her El Sobrante home clicked on, and Francine Manuel's message began: "Hi, everybody. Samuel and Sandor just got chosen by the 49ers. They'll be home very soon. We'll all be living (together) again."

Francine Manuel's identical twin sons were drafted by the NFL's San Francisco 49ers, each a seventh-round choice from New Mexico State, in April.

Their selections created a stir in the area media, which latched onto the unusual twist of twins from Pinole Valley High School being drafted by a Bay Area team. The fact that Samuel was the draft's final selection added spice to the story.

Francine, though, knows her family's story goes so much deeper.

"It's just amazing," Francine said. "It's our first break, and it's a big one. It's their first break, and it's a big one."

Bumpy road to pros

As Francine knows so well, the road Sandor, who also goes by Sean, and Samuel traveled to the 49ers was as bumpy as one ripped apart by an earthquake.

Their father, Samuel, died of cancer when the twins were 9. Francine suddenly became a single mother raising three boys, Sean, Samuel and their younger brother, Neno, in a rough El Sobrante neighborhood bordering Richmond.

"I always said it was a wild ride. I had my hands on the reins. Sometimes the horses were pulling me," Francine said, laughing.

Francine can laugh now. It hasn't been easy. Not only was she forced to raise her three sons alone, but also she has also fought colon cancer.

Through it all, she watched her sons be targets of racism from whites and blacks. The twins' father was black. Francine is white.

"It was hard," said Francine, a Pittsburg native. "In the community, they were really not accepted by either side."

Fought with all the kids

The Manuels, Francine said, live in a lower-income, predominantly white neighborhood. It's an area that would provide plenty of material for Jeff Foxworthy's "You know you're a redneck when . . ." routine, but with a meaner twist.

Yet they also live a few blocks from Richmond and a predominantly black neighborhood.

"Coming from a mixed background, we know where we stand on things," Samuel said, "but other people have a hard time defining us. Whites look like, he's black. Blacks look like, he's black, but he's different. You don't act just like us. You don't have our same mentality.

"So they tend to judge you and want you to fit into the category with them, but I don't totally fit in there, and I don't fit in at all over here with the whites. So it's weird. You grow up fighting both, not fitting in either way and then fighting on both sides of the track. And that's what it was a lot of times. We fought with all the white kids on our block, and then we go to school and we have to walk through the all-black neighborhood and we end up fighting with all the black kids in that neighborhood. It was a trip."

One day on his way to junior high school, Samuel got into a fight with a black schoolmate. This was no ordinary incident.

"He and all his friends chased me and my brother down for about the next year," Samuel said.

"All I know is there were about eight boys after my sons," Francine said. "We couldn't go anyplace where they didn't amass. It turned out that the boy that Samuel had the encounter with later killed somebody with a gun."

Discipline was lacking

Samuel and Sean were supposed to attend De Anza High School the next year. But Francine decided she had to get them to a different school. After a long battle - "I had to fight it all the way to the superintendent" - the twins were allowed to enroll at Pinole Valley.

Both brothers starred on the Pinole Valley football team. Sean was a running back and outside linebacker. Sam played fullback and outside linebacker. Yet when their high-school careers ended, they wound up at Laney Junior College instead of a major four-year school.

The main reasons were mediocre grades and an undisciplined attitude. Both brothers maintained their athletic eligibility during high school but with little room to spare. Incidents on and off the field hurt their chances, too.

"Misdemeanor assaults," Samuel said. "We were in about four riots at the end of my time. People got hurt. Broken noses, stuff like that. Misdemeanor stuff. But it started to become a reputation that (was) passed on to the scouts and other head coaches."

The twins played basketball for Pinole Valley, and one melee broke out at the end of a game at Berkeley High School, with fans pouring out of the stands.

"The Utah State coach was in the stands," Samuel said. "Me and my brother got into an all-out riot inside the gym. We ended up fighting with about 10 Berkeley High people each. They were on top of us. There was just a whole lot of chaos. The Utah State coach called me the next day and said, `Sorry, son, we don't need linebackers this year.' "

Francine watched from the stands in horror as her sons were surrounded that night.

"They were trapped back-to-back in the middle of a nightmare," she said.

"He was straight Mussolini"

Samuel and Sean enrolled at Laney, where they came under the rule of Stan Peters, an iron-fisted coach who demanded excellence on the field and in the classroom. Playing for Peters was harder than covering Jerry Rice alone, but it was what they needed.

Whether during football season or not, if Peters caught a player hanging out on campus and not attending classes between 9 a.m. and noon, he would in his words "run the hell out of them." Three strikes and they were off the team.

If a player was late for practice, he would run so much that he'd often throw up.

"That's the hardest man I've been around in my life," Samuel said. "That man, hey, he's a good guy now, but he was straight Mussolini when we were there. Good God, that man was ruthless.

"But I was so far to the right that his so-far-to-the-left attitude kind of pulled me right to the middle where I needed to be."

Peters accepted no excuses, on or off the field. He required his players to maintain a 2.5 grade-point average - the state minimum for eligibility is a 2.0 - with a goal of a 3.0. Both brothers, Peters said, met that goal.

"Our program is known for discipline," Peters said. "That's the No. 1 thing both those guys needed and is probably the reason they came to Laney. They're both real good kids. They were just a little loose out there. I don't think they knew what it takes to get the job done as far as going to class, being on time."

Time to get serious

It was during junior college that both brothers decided it was time to get serious about school.

Sean remembers deciding he was simply "not going to make the same mistakes I made in high school that got me here in JC in the first place. I'm going to get past this. I'm going to do the school thing first and then football is going to come afterwards."

Samuel felt as if his "clock was winding down" and he had few chances left.

"I had so much potential, but was I ever going to get to use it? I got a little scared when I couldn't go to college because of trouble, because of my grades. Right then when I went to JC, I said, `This is my last chance. I can't really mess things up.' That's kind of when I woke up."

It was also time to make Francine proud, to reward her for the faith she had shown in them and repay her for years of supporting the family.

"I said if I get a chance to pay this lady back, I'm taking full advantage and doing whatever I have to do, even if it kills me," Sean said. "She goes to work about 14 hours a day (as a physical therapist). She had colon cancer and she took the home chemotherapy, and she still worked eight hours a day with the chemotherapy device hooked up to her.

"And she'd come in and pass out on the couch. Half of the time, she wouldn't even make it to the back bedroom to go to sleep because she'd be so hurt and tired. She just did it so we could keep making it.

"If it wasn't for her, me and my brother would probably both be out hustling with our friends, still fighting and shooting things up or whatever. We'd just do the same as everybody else that's stuck back there in Richmond, the street stuff. Either that or we'd have flunked out of school."

New attitude, new position

At Laney, Sean had a new attitude and a new position - tight end - that suited him perfectly. He has exceptional speed for a tight end but is also a physical blocker.

Sam excelled at outside linebacker.

The Manuel brothers thought they were on their way to a major college scholarship.

They thought wrong.

Samuel suffered a shoulder injury that forced him to miss his sophomore season at Laney in 1992. Cal and Oregon had some interest in Sean, but they wanted to wait until after spring practice to decide.

Sean couldn't wait. He and Samuel had firm scholarship offers from New Mexico State. Francine was fighting cancer and desperately wanted to make sure her oldest sons' college educations were secure.

"She was panicked," Sean said. "She didn't know if she was going to make it. She said, `You guys just get out. So at least you can get a check and be supported and I don't have to worry about you. And then I'll leave Neno with your uncle in Los Gatos.'

"Me and Sam said, `Forget it, we'll just take it, let's just swallow our pride.' We were the same way as everybody else, `New Mexico State, what is that place?' We were the same way, `Only garbage people go down to New Mexico State, no one that's any good goes there.' We went down there anyway."

Found in `forgotten outpost'

Just days after signing his letter of intent to New Mexico State, Sean learned that Colorado wanted him. It was too late. Yet there was a silver lining. The brothers were still together.

Sean redshirted in '93 with a knee injury. He caught 39 passes in '94 and 46 last season, setting a school record for receptions by a tight end. Only two other Division I-A tight ends caught more passes last year.

Samuel started three seasons playing defensive end and outside linebacker and finished with 206 career tackles. As a senior, he had five sacks and 15 tackles for losses.

The brothers felt as if they were stationed at some forgotten outpost in the New Mexico desert, but the 49ers' scouts found them.

As seventh-round draft choices, they aren't locks to even make the team. But Sean and Samuel impressed their coaches during the 49ers' three-day minicamp in May.

Sean covers 40 yards in just more than 4.6 seconds and is probably the fastest tight end on San Francisco's roster. The 49ers need a young tight end to learn behind starter Brent Jones, and Sean should get a long look in training camp.

"(Sean) showed some really good signs of being a really fine athlete, being able to move with quickness," tight ends coach Mike Solari said. "I'm impressed with his character and work ethic."

Mom betting on sons

Samuel is more of a project. He has limited experience in pass coverage and is a bit undersized.

"But I sure liked his movement," 49ers linebackers coach John Marshall said. "He's a great kid. Very smart. I liked what I saw, especially his attitude."

Francine, Pittsburg High School's valedictorian in 1964, is no football coach, but she comes from a football family and knows the game.

Her father, Joe Cattolico, was a high-school running back in Pittsburg. Her brother, Butch, was a stellar high-school quarterback and now coaches football at Los Gatos High School.

Francine realizes her sons face long odds to survive in the NFL, but she's betting on them.

"I'm the mother, right, but I think they're going to show everybody," Francine said. "I think (the 49ers) are going to be surprised. Just like New Mexico State got a deal, so did the 49ers."