CENTERVILLE — Sennett Fraughton jumped into his truck and took off on the cold Friday night last October.

Fraughton and his Viewmont Viking football team had just pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the high school football year knocking off eventual state runner-up Davis High at the Darts field.

While his teammates mulled around the Viewmont parking lot celebrating the victory and figuring out where to go enjoy the night, Fraughton was gone. He sped through the streets of Centerville, up a small hill to the town’s cemetery.

Fraughton hopped out of his truck and through the darkness made his way to the resting place of his older brother, Seth.

“We did it, Seth,” Sennett said softly. “We beat Davis.”

Sennett explained about being with Seth.

“Once that game ended all I wanted to do was go be with Seth,” Sennett said. “Davis had beaten us so many times and to be part of a senior class that finally beat them was so exciting.

“I just wanted to share it with Seth.”

Sennett spends a significant amount of time at Seth’s resting place. Not as an obsession of a young man who has yet to accept that his big brother is gone, but rather it’s just a place where Sennett feels connected to his brother.

It will be just two years on Aug. 4 since Seth Fraughton’s death shocked Viewmont High and the football community across Utah. The young man who was larger than life drowned while swimming with friends at Bear Lake following the first week of football practice.

After his brother’s death, Sennett became determined to show Seth and others that he could be his own person, a leader in his own right…not just Seth’s little brother.

“There were some out there who didn’t think I could move on without Seth because he and I were so close,” Sennett said. “I knew Seth wanted me to move forward in life, to be my own person, to be a leader.”

It was easier said than done.

During that football season, without their emotional leader and arguably the best running back in the state, Viewmont suffered some close losses and exciting wins earning a trip to the state playoffs. The dream for the senior class ended at the hands of American Fork High. But everywhere they went Sennett was still Seth’s kid brother, not necessarily a bad thing.

“I was treated great,” Sennett said. “Teams were great. Orem and Alta sent roses, Bountiful raised thousands of dollars in Seth’s name (with the help of Clearfield High who the Braves played the week before the VHS game). It was amazing to see how many people were touched by Seth’s life and how kind people could be.”

Sennett believes the change for him came during a basketball game against Clearfield. It had been the Falcons where Seth had earned his first start as a sophomore and also where he scored his first varsity touchdown. As Sennett tried to play in the basketball game against Clearfield his emotions burst to the surface.

“I couldn’t stop crying,” Sennett said. “I finally took myself out of the game and my coach asked me what was wrong and I didn’t want to talk about it. I kept crying.

“I was angry, felt sorry for myself. Seth and I were going to live on a pheasant farm together, do other things and it had all been taken away.

“It was then I realized I had to break through. I had to be my own person, that Seth was gone.”

From that moment on, Sennett has not looked back, but became a leader in his own right, playing the sports he loved because he loved them, not because he was Seth’s brother. Sennett chose to stay with basketball while Seth had walked away from that sport to focus on football. Sennett became a more vocal leader while Seth was a quiet lead-by-example type.

“We’re a lot alike but in many ways so different,” Sennett said. “It’s just part of finding my own way.”

But he’ll always be Seth’s brother, something he carries with pride.

“People today still will slip and call me Seth,” Sennett said. “I don’t mind. In fact, it’s an honor.”

sschulte@davisclipper.com