I still remember the look on his face.
I don’t think it was fear, it was something more displaced, more hidden in the gray area of confusion and excitement wrapped in a bundle of unfamiliarity. “Are you alright?” I asked him, as if I or anyone else was. We were told to get away from the windows, an order that seemed more suited for a hurricane in late summer. Never something like what we heard. And so there we sat, both teams, white and gray, crouching in corners and shaking each other’s shaking hands. Speculations and assumptions as to what happened spread as quickly as we had arrived in that locker room. And so began the game.
–
On November 7, there would be no long lectures or assignments, nor would we take any confusing tests or hear early alarms. It was an election day, and for many I know, it was a day of rest, of revival, and of fun. But for the 29 players on the Radnor Boys Soccer Team, it was a day of anticipation, of excitement, and of hunger. On that cold night at 6:00, the team would experience something the program hasn’t seen in some years: a state playoff game. The cloudy day awaited each and every one of us, demanding itself to be seized as if the sun glowed brighter than it ever had before. Our phones were occupied by motivational videos, tactics written in the middle of the night, and capital letters reading LOCKED IN. Coach had prepared us day in and day out for this type of game, one he claimed could never be won by just skill, but rather by the sheer heart and will of those who possessed it. The Gents had seen each other throughout the day, whether at team breakfast or coaching friends at Memorial Field, and while our energy remained contagious, it was clear we all had to prepare for the fight ahead. Of those I talked to in the hours leading up to the game, many were at home finding any and every way to spark their energy and find those capital letters in the recesses of their mind. It was election day, and so we had the day to do whatever was necessary
By 4:30, we began to arrive in the locker room. The loud, exuberant music that we heard every game day played from the speaker, instantly reminding us of what gameday meant to the Gents. EXPO markers filled the entirety of the whiteboard, displaying the 3-5-2, high press, and entry pass tenets of our game, bringing logic to those capital letters. The sun had finally crept out from behind the clouds, and Encke Field looked truly ready for a game of immaculate proportions. The boots were put on, the calves were stretched, the hands were clapped, and we awaited our leaders patiently, and together. Minutes later, we arose from our benches, creating a noise paramount to that of a charging army, rebelling against the fallen night. In unison, the Gents took the field.
Beside us on the field of play was the Lancaster Area high school, Lampeter-Strasbourg, a team we had prepared for assiduously in the days leading up to Tuesday; their direct balls, their speed, and their vulnerabilities. It’s only when you arrive at that field that you remember those in white aren’t just subjects of playback film but are kids like yourself.
We warmed up passionately, our legs moving quicker with each step. Unsure if I would even play due to an Achilles injury and taped up beyond compare, the pure energy that surrounded that game distracted from any pain, and the thumbs-up was sent to Coach. As we began warming-up, I noticed the stands fill with people each time I looked away, each person talking to another, exchanging handshakes and laughing. It filled up quickly and loudly. 3 minutes to kick-off and so the grays were put on. We looked toward the flag on the near side of the field, blowing triumphantly in the wind, as the national anthem was sung. Coach brought us together and reminded us why we were there, what it meant to play together on that field on that night with those guys. The 11 Gents took the field. “Family,” we said. The crowd that had formed erupted in applause and cheers for both sides of the half-way line. A whistle blew among the ruckus, and the ball was kicked.
After deflecting a long ball at the back line, we pressed and immediately asserted our confident, flying style of play. Despite our intensity, I remember the beginning of the game in short intervals. Not even 30 seconds in, a ball came bouncing from the right wing towards me, routinely and slowly. The ball skidded past, and I panicked. Saved by the quick thinking of our goalie, I sighed and looked at the field in front of me, as a sudden, ineffable sense of strangeness filled my head. Something was off. Seconds later, a shot on goal, an almost unreal and early stinger scored off a deflection, only missing the prized white and gray net by inches. The game paused as the other team’s goalie walked slowly off the field after getting hit in the nose. “Take some shots,” I remember saying to the forwards.
In our brief huddle, there were flashing lights from beyond the field–red and blue, illuminating the dark street. One siren. Then another. And then another. Play resumed as we looked at one other, perplexed. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Things in Radnor are always supposed to happen.
I don’t remember anything after seeing the cops. My only recollections are aided by the dark, silent eyes of the film from that night. The ball came to my feet from up top. Passing it out wide, I ran forward for the give and go. This was the last time anyone touched the ball. I heard a commotion from the crowd. I couldn’t make out what they were chanting: and then, two words you never expect to hear while playing the sport you love.
“Get out.”
I saw players in white begin to sprint far away from where I stood with the ball. They ran and didn’t look back. Security guards yelled vehemently into the night to run, to leave, and to get off the field. There isn’t much to think about when faced with orders like that. I began to sprint faster perhaps than I had during the entire season. Before leaving that hallowed field, I remember looking back at the scene in the stands. Men and women, children and adults, students and parents dashed across metal in a rush of fear and uncertainty. This wasn’t supposed to happen. There was nobody left, save for the reverberations of screams and pleas from police officers. The red and blue lights of the cop cars, the bright yellow lights of the financial center, and that old red scoreboard retired into the night as I and countless others ran desperately into the away locker room. 38:01. 2 minutes felt like an eternity.
When I got into the locker room, I found that not only was I accompanied by my teammates but by every single member of the other team, as well as friends and classmates, referees and teachers– each one of us frozen with our thoughts. I don’t remember if I sat down but I know if I did, it wasn’t for long because my mind had finally started to do that thing the mind does: think the very worst. I was tapped from behind by an exhausted teammate. He told me the guys on the bench had run for the woods. Then came the first theory of the long night. He told me that he had heard gunshots from a distance, several bullets fired near the school. “A shooter?” I asked, trying to keep my composure. Then came a new, far more unprecedented order.
“Get away from the windows.”
It was said neither loudly nor desperately, but calmly as if they were telling us to turn off the TV. As we fled to the corners and the benches, the opponents no longer seemed like athletes from an hour away, but like friends you’ve known your entire life. In those brief moments, after the initial fears were replaced by collective disbelief, I don’t remember a shiver in my voice or even the voices of others. I remember laughing. “This happen often?” a kid in white asked. I laughed. As I sighed a sanguine sigh. I couldn’t help but notice that others around me were talking calmly to one another, giving support and asking questions. The commotion continued outside, and my thoughts went immediately back to everyone who wasn’t inside this small, crammed room. I reached for my pocket, looking for answers. Empty. Everyone who could call someone was doing just that.
Coach came in quickly but remained calm. He told us, the Gents, to come back into the home locker room, that very place where an hour ago we yelled into the night, knowing that it was ours. The boys in gray walked confidently out of the crowded doorway where a line of police officers, security guards, and coaches had created a barricade from the outside world, shielding the empty field of play from our sight. It was something straight out of a movie. Like a twisted version of déjà vu, we were back in our locker room, standing by our bags, away from the windows. I remember several players on the team yelling to each other to stop sitting on the ledge of the window, and it all became very real again. I saw some others reach into their bags and grab their phones to call friends and parents. Like many of my teammates, this thought never crossed my mind. In talking to others, we all thought initially that a fight had broken out, maybe between our fans we joked. The joking stopped when coach came back into the room.
“We have to go. Leave your stuff,” he told us.
Immediately, a sense of nervous confusion filled the room. At this point we were all still clinging to the belief that an active shooter was near, so going out into the open space was the very last idea on our minds. Frozen, we looked at each other. Seconds of deep breaths later, the sprint began again. Each one of us, still clad in our cleats and shin guards, walked out of the room, around the corner, and onto the desolate ramp leading away from the field. We ran quickly and blindly, but we ran together. As the pounding of the cleats ceased at the top of the ramp, I looked back at the field. The insanity of the night halted in the silent grandeur of an illuminated pitch without its players. It was all quiet on Encke Field.
Together, we walked quickly towards the pool entrance of the school where we thought we’d be safe from the invisible danger that pursued us. Once there, we were confronted by what seemed like hundreds of small children coming from the pool, running up the stairs with their parents. A security guard yelled to us as we tried to enter the building, telling us we couldn’t go inside.
“Leave? What does that mean? How are we supposed to leave?”
With very few of us having our phones, and almost none having their keys, we were limited in places to go. Only the confusion was there to guide us, and the 39 Gents ran up the steps and stood idle under the bus depot’s covering. We turned to each other, partly to console our brothers and partly to ask what’s next. We stood completely still as scores of people jammed into their cars and left. The cold wind made itself known.
As if on cue, our typically lively assistant coach came running up to the group, his expression deathly serious. “Get in a car with someone you trust and go home.” Huddled together in the beams of headlights, we looked at one another for the last time that night before we dispersed out into the senior parking lot. I walked around with a close friend on the team as we searched for a familiar face in the confluence of hurried families and fans. We came across the parents of a teammate and asked for a ride home. With grandparents and other kids already in the car, it would be a nearly impossible fit. Then, a stroke of luck in the form of a gray jeep. A close friend of ours stopped in the long line of cars and told us to hop in. We nodded, thanked the family, and rushed into his back seats
As we drove away into the teeming streets surrounding the school, I felt a breath reenter my lungs. My friend and I looked at each other with a shared laugh of disbelief. We each called our parents and were thankful to hear their abidingly reassuring voices. As we drove up King of Prussia Road and past the school, we again noticed the red and blue lights that surrounded the school where just the day before we had learned about The Continental Congress and Relative Extrema. From the window, the whole thing suddenly felt very small and very far away. Helicopters flew overhead, the sound of their propellers drowning out any conversation we were having. The names of familiar news stations were plastered on the side, and they floated in circular motions over Radnor High School. Cop cars passed us in hordes as we traveled down Lancaster Avenue and arrived at the home of another teammate.
Rumors continued to spread as several teammates and their families arrived at the home. Some believed it was a bank robber, fresh from his escapades at TD Bank and looking for an escape route through the High School. Others, like my dad, thought it was a fugitive who got off the highway at Exit 13 and was looking for a place to hide. In the end, it was called a bomb threat, a possibility none of us predicted.
That night, some of my teammates and I talked about almost everything but the night itself. Perhaps because it really did scare us, or perhaps because somewhere within us we believed the night was still ours.
“Go home and be safe,” Coach texted us. “Love you guys.”
We continued to talk by the kitchen table, our phones, keys, wallets, and bags still lying in that unifying locker room. For the first time in a long time, we didn’t worry about the world on our small screens. We were the Gents, both in my friend’s home and the homes of many others, continuing our conversations of soccer, school, and girls that we were having before the chaos of the night. We celebrated my friend’s birthday as we pretended to watch the news with some sarcastic pride that our school was on channel 6.
And so pressed on the Gents unbroken.
