We tried to do anything we could to put a smile on the kids’ faces – a chat, a photo, an autograph.
Quite a few more were still in hospital being treated for their injuries. There were round tables laid out for people to gather around, but a lot of the students were walking around consoling each other and hugging. Because it was so soon after the tragedy, it was the first time a lot of them had all been together in the same place. There was something like 1,500 students there. The last thing we wanted to do was to inadvertently say something that upset people, so we kind of agreed on how we would handle the conversations. The players talked on the way there about the kind of things we should and shouldn’t speak about. It wasn’t our job to be counsellors – there were professionals for that – but rather to brighten the students’ day by asking them how they were feeling, maybe talk about the soccer and hand out tickets to a game, if they felt like attending. It was like something out of the worst nightmare you could imagine. My heart hurt for them and their families. There were teenagers, kids, walking around on crutches and wearing bandages, who had obviously either been shot or had hurt themselves trying to escape. We were there to meet with the students, chat to them and hopefully provide a welcome distraction from the horror they’d just lived through. My team, the Houston Dash, visited Santa Fe High School five days after a gunman killed eight students and two teachers on campus in May. I feel like I saw the best and worst of America in the space of a few weeks.
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