High School Football Team Near Fort Hood Copes With Tragedy

The scene here at Leo Buckley Stadium late Friday night was reminiscent of most high school football venues across the country, as the Shoemaker Grey Wolves dealt with the reality their season was over.

Tears were shed, hugs were exchanged between players, coaches and players, coaches and coaches. Then the coaches thanked the seniors for great effort.

But this was no ordinary season-finale ritual for the Grey Wolves. Just over 24 hours earlier, many of them weren't sure if their parents or loved ones were injured -- or worse, killed -- in the deadly shooting rampage at Fort Hood, the nation's largest military base.

Shoemaker High School, which is just a stone's throw away from Fort Hood, is heavily populated with kids whose families either live on base or are serving in the military. With wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, these young people have become accustomed to dealing with death.

But that didn't make news of Thursday's deadly rampage any easier for many of them to take. Twelve soldiers and one civilian were killed, and 30 others were wounded. If there was any solace, it was that none of the Grey Wolves' parents or immediate family members were affected by the shooting.

"We just sat there and put our heads together and wished for the best and hoped it was none of our relatives. Luckily, it wasn't. But we came out here to play for them, too, the people from Fort Hood."

"It was tough for us, knowing some of our players' moms and dads were probably hurt or injured," said Shoemaker sophomore quarterback Jammie Blount, whose family is awaiting orders to deplored to Korea soon. "We just sat there and put our heads together and wished for the best and hoped it was none of our relatives. Luckily it wasn't.

"But we came out here to play for them, too, the people from Fort Hood."

"It was really hard for us to come and play this game knowing what went on and that families some of us know were affected," said Shoemaker senior lineman Jaime Bennett, who shed tears when the game was finished. "It was really really tough to get through. But we prayed and then we moved on."

Shoemaker head coach Ken Gray braced for the worst as news spread around Killeen that a shooter was on the loose on base. Around Shoemaker, much more so than the other high schools in the community, helping young kids deal with tragedy is just something teachers, coaches and administrators do.

"We are in a unique situation in that our kids' parents are fighting the war in Iraq and they are fighting the war in Afghanistan and Kuwait and places," Gray said. "So there have been events like this in their lives.

"What we try to do as coaches is we try to keep things as normal as we can and as consistent as we can with our kids. This tragedy from (Thursday) kind of wears on the kids, whether it's their dad or not. Whenever they hear of a soldier passing or getting killed we send up a prayer because you never know when it's one of their parents or relatives."

The Killeen school district shut down all extra-curricular activities the day of the shooting, but higher-ups at Fort Hood expressed the desire to get things back to normal. So it was business as usual Friday night at Buckley Stadium, where the night began as always with a prayer for the soldiers and their families.

"The message this morning from Fort Hood was they wanted to get things back as normal as possible with school and everything else," said Killeen District athletic director Tom Rogers. "So this is our regularly scheduled game.

"There was some discussion early but that went away fairly quickly.

"Any time I've been around football or a sporting event where there has been a tragedy that's happened during that week," he continued, "it's what the kids know and when they get to go to the field it gets them back to their normal life and they get to forget about anything that's going on outside."

But Rogers admitted Thursday was especially tough for the student-athletes.

"A lot of them went through a lot of stress (Thursday) because there was quite a bit of uncertainty for quite a bit of time because so many of their parents work on Fort Hood," Rogers said. "So when they locked things down, rumors started flying and kids start talking and people start talking. There are some things that come out ... There was just a lot of uncertainty so for them to come back and play a game like that tonight was unbelievable."

Winless this season, the Grey Wolves seemed to play inspired football Friday night as they took an early 6-0 lead over rival Temple and then another 12-7 lead in the second quarter before Temple and highly touted running back recruit Lache Seastrunk ran off with a 44-32 victory.

But Gray, whose team made the Texas high school playoffs last season, talked about his team with pride despite their 0-10 season. He saw his team, which lost its three Division I prospects to injury within the first two weeks of the season, fight until the end Friday night.

In fact, the outcome could have been much different for the Grey Wolves had their receivers not dropped three point-blank touchdown passes.


"They were ready to go. Like we told them all week, `You give it all you've got. There's a lot of people that are supporting you throughout the world,' Gray said. "We were getting calls from Iraq, kids were getting text messages from everywhere around the world, because that's where our kids' parents are.

"So there are a lot of people supporting us so I kind of reminded them of that."