From little league soccer teams cultivating life long friendships, to a dying child meeting his favorite athlete as his last wish, to President George W. Bush throwing the first pitch at Yankee stadium just 49 days after 9/11 followed with a thumbs up to remind the nation we would be okay, sports have assiduously assumed their role as the best coping mechanism for tragedy and facilitator of togetherness.
Never has there been such an outcry of athletic support than following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Two years ago, on February 14, 2018, a gunman walked onto the Douglas campus and subsequently stole the lives of 17 Eagles — 14 students and three faculty members. Through wearing MSD patches on jerseys, letting the members of the victims families throw out the first pitch at a Marlin’s game, and Dwayne Wade visiting the MSD campus, the support shown for the Parkland Community continues to help us heal and celebrate the lives of our fallen 17.
When you put on the same uniform as your teammates or the same colors as fellow fans, you become a family, sharing one common interest. Understanding this, one could only imagine how Dwayne Wade felt when he discovered that a young boy from a small town in South Florida named Joaquin ‘Guac’ Oliver, had just had his young life stolen and admired Wade so passionately that his parents felt it was only right that Joaquin be buried in a Dwayne Wade jersey.
Consequently, Wade visited Marjory Stoneman Douglas during school hours, no media, just him and the students. He spoke with leaders of the March for Our Lives movement, spearheaded by MSD survivors, during which time he vowed to get their message out. Wade stood by his word and facilitated a free exhibit at the Wynwood Art District in Miami, Florida. This exhibit would be available for 17 hours and feature 17 desks decorated with names of the victims. As well as phones available to visitors set up with a direct line to state representatives so everyone would have an opportunity to voice their concerns. Wade gave students from Parkland a voice.
It didn’t stop there. On March 18, 2018 the Parkland Recreational Basketball league held its annual championship tournament at Pine Trails Park where members of the Miami Heat made a special visit.
Recognizing that whether or not each of these kids was a Heat fan was irrelevant. They were basketball fans and when tragedy strikes, uniform colors and team logos fade. The Heat stayed for hours, shooting baskets and listening to the young players share stories about their departed teammates. This is not something that happened in front of the cameras or was done for a profit. Instead, it was athletes of the highest level remembering where they came from, trying to help younger athletes make sense of the world.
It was then, for the first time after the shooting, that I witnessed a room full of people simply having fun, we had found ourselves and we were stronger than ever before.
The Heat were not the only team to stand with MSD.
All Major League Baseball teams wore hats with the letters “SD” embroidered on them. These hats were later signed and sold at auction to raise money for the Stoneman Douglas Victims fund. In a time when morale was as low as it could possibly be, knowing that not just our own Marlins would be playing in honor of our 17, but all MLB teams, made Parkland feel recognized.
As support from the sports world continued to grow, so did our resilience. Parkland was no longer going through this alone, the whole world was by our side and through the empathy shown to us, we found compassion for one another and the childlike appreciation for sports we thought we may never get back.
The Marlins also invited the families of all of the victims to throw out the first pitch at one of their home games, giving them an opportunity to bond together over a national pastime rather than meetings with political representatives and reporters.
The Miami Dolphins invited the MSD football team to sit on the sidelines for one of their games, helping young men who had just lost their football Coach, Aaron Feis, remember why they love football and allowing them to have a enjoyable day as a team.
The sports world came together in the most remarkable way when they posthumously recognized Coach Aaron Feis, Athletic Director Chris Hixon, and Coach Scott Biegel for the Coach of the Year award at the 2018 ESPYs. This gave former and current players of each of these coaches, their families, and friends the comfort of knowing that though they may be gone, they will forever be remembered as heroes both in sports and in life.
Then, just four short months after the shooting, MSD Alumni would create an event that would not only honor those we had lost and help bring us together in a time that we most needed it, but that will reunite Eagles from all over the nation for years to come.
The first annual Feis Bowl was held on Saturday June 9, 2018 this would be an event held every year at Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s Cumber Stadium, where alumni of the football and cheerleading teams would have the opportunity to reassume their positions, reuniting with old friends and new ones to remind us all where we came from and who we hoped to become after our time at Douglas. Alumni players would suit up for a friendly game against current players, and cheerleaders from the past 28 graduating classes would join together in front of fans to perform our signature dances and chants.
Most recently, the MSD football team had the opportunity to practice on the Super Bowl LIV field, entering through the same tunnels the Chiefs and 49ers would emerge from three days later. They ran plays as the network tested camera angels for the impending worldwide broadcast. Once again reminding the Parkland community, that though two years have passed, our pain has not been forgotten and the sports world will always stand #DouglasStrong.
Sports are consistently used as a metaphor for life because they embody the human experience. They bring people together requiring sacrifice, trust, and devotion. There are heroes and villains, there are triumphs and there are losses. Parkland met a great villain and suffered an incomprehensible loss. It was adrift among a whirlwind of political debate in a town that no longer felt like home to its citizens.
Through sports we were finally given the chance to show the world we are not just the home of the largest high school mass shooting in U.S history, but also the home of great families, friends, and sports fans. With that came the discovery of who we wanted to be as a community.
We could not change losing 17 of our own, but we could change how we honored them. Not by letting it rip us apart, but by remembering what it means to live in Parkland. To be Positive, Passionate and Proud to be an Eagle.
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