"His people have different stories of the creation of humans, but according to Adohi Ross, the first Cherokee Molecular Biology Student to play for Huygens, Native legends of mountains –- that arose when long ago the word was completely covered by water -- are verified by the geological origins of the rocks that distinguish Mount Diablo.

"On the sidelines of the last day of practice before the Wolves game, many players on my team said that they had never been to Mt Diablo, nor had that ever seen the view they would soon see from the Campus of Diablo Mountain College. But from those who have been on that mountain, talk of legends continued. From the Greek stories that his mother told him, River related that Nyx, the goddess of night, came down to earth as a bird with black wings. She mated wih the wind. And then she laid the golden egg that grew into our earth.

"Only River and I have reached the top of Mount Diablo," Griff said to Caydance, while she worked on her mulberry paper painting, and he tried not to make changes in the playbook. "Every spring when the isolated forest areas on the mountain turned green, and there were wildflowers in rock crevices, my family would hike on Mt. Diablo. Spring was the only time that my Montreal-born mother would venture to that summer hot rocky moutain. I, however, looked forward to exploring the formations on Rock City Trail.

"At the base of the mountain, Dad always urged silence in the place where native dead were buried or where their spirits returned from captivity in the missions. 'And at harvest time', he said 'if you listen carefully you can hear the sounds of their dancing feet, and their voices, and their ceremonial pipes.'