Cheltenham football coach Troy Gore mourns his son’s loss as the community wraps its arms around him

Was it a father’s intuition? Perhaps an angel in his ear?

Whatever it was, Troy Gore knew he needed his Uber driver to make a U-turn, a diversion that would end with a broken heart.

It was Sept. 18 and Gore had been unable to reach his son, Troy Rivera, who had been driving Gore’s car and was overdue to pick up Gore’s mother from the grocery store.

As has often been the case in his life, Gore, a longtime minister at the Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, believes God intervened.

“It was just a feeling,” Gore said, voice low, head down, sitting on a bench near Cheltenham’s practice field. “I can’t explain it. I really can’t. Only thing I can say is God turned me around.”

Minutes after that detour, Gore — the 54-year-old football coach at Cheltenham High School — learned that Rivera was in a serious car accident.

Rivera, 28, once was an affable offensive lineman on a historic Imhotep Charter football squad. Ten days after the accident, he died from his injuries.

“I am still in a state of disbelief,” Gore said. “I don’t even know how I’m functioning. Family has to remind me to eat. The only thing that keeps me moving is this …”

Gore, a deputy Philadelphia fire chief with nearly 30 years of experience, pointed to the then-empty field soon to be bustling with his players, purpose, and passion.

Forlorn faces at funerals and accident sites led him to pour into his community through football.

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In the wake of tragedy, the community has returned the favor.

Now Gore, who already is flanked by staff members whose lives he has changed, hopes to use his grief to help more boys become men.

“I think there’s a responsibility for men to show and display emotional intelligence that teaches a young man that it’s OK to mourn, it’s OK to cry, it’s OK to say, ‘I love you,’” Gore said. “We need to teach them that it’s all right to hurt because when a young man is hurt, he hurts other people. When you teach young men how to mourn, how to cry, how to walk away, it actually helps them in conflict resolution and helps them channel their anger and get it out.”

Rivera was on the 2013 Imhotep squad that became the first public school to compete for a PIAA football championship.

The Panthers fell short that season, but Rivera built bonds.

When every other starting offensive lineman on the team that year played at Division I schools, Rivera went to Arizona State as a student.

Gore said Rivera had always been an A student. He graduated in the top 10 at Imhotep.

Rivera also was close with Jaelen Strong and DeAndre Scott, who were standout football players at West Catholic and Imhotep, respectively. That duo also played at Arizona State.

Eventually, though, homesickness led Rivera to Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he studied culinary arts.

“He was a fun, energetic, hardworking young man who loved God, loved his family, and was an awesome cook,” Gore said.

He was a maestro on the grill. People are still trying to decipher his recipe for ribs, Gore said. Most recently, Rivera had earned his commercial driver’s license.

He sometimes drove the Upper Dublin football team to its games.

Gore recently found a “Coach Gore” shirt in his son’s bedroom inside their East Oak Lane home. He believes he last wore it to transport Upper Dublin’s team. For weeks, Rivera’s PlayStation remained paused on Call of Duty, which he was playing before he left to pick up his grandmother.

Gore couldn’t bring himself to turn it off. He only recently took out the trash he had asked Rivera to remove that day. Gore’s two daughters recently helped with household chores.

At home, he’s surrounded by a sea of memories. On the field, though, he seems to find some footing.

“They tell me to go home and take care of myself,” he said. “I’ve got to be here. If I’m not here, then I’m home in the bed, laying there, scrolling through photos and old videos [on the phone].”

Two days after his son’s accident, Gore was by Rivera’s side, watching Cheltenham get its first win of the season. The Panthers started 0-4 before beating Bensalem, 31-14, on Sept. 20.

Gore watched on YouTube from the hospital and occasionally texted encouragement and suggestions to his coaches.

“Them learning how to come together and fight for one common cause,” Gore said, “it was very fulfilling to see kids who I love dearly consider my son as an inspiration. It was awesome.”

The Panthers dedicated the win to Rivera and FaceTimed their coach during the postgame celebration in the locker room.

Two of Gore’s coaches are familiar with how Gore has used football to change lives in his 25-year coaching career.

Kevin Hite, 50, has coached with Gore for 11 years. Gore gave him his first high school coaching job.

“He goes beyond the call,” said Hite, who was a standout at George Washington in 1992. “Last weekend, he showed up to practice with more than 60 chicken sandwiches in the morning. He shuffles kids around on college visits on his dollar, nobody else’s.”

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D.J. McFadden grew up with Rivera. He has known Gore as a minister and as a coach through Enon, where McFadden’s father has been a member since 1999.

McFadden, 31, went to middle school with Rivera but played football at Abington. He later played receiver at Bloomsburg University.

“You’re looking at one of [Gore’s] products,” McFadden said.

“I was in 12 different schools from kindergarten through 12th grade,” he added, “so I’m definitely a product of molding young men through the game of football. The same things [Gore] instilled in me when I was younger are the same things I’m trying to teach here as the offensive coordinator.”

Part of Gore’s teaching, it seems, is showing appreciation.

Gore declined to provide a name, but he said one of his former players who now is in the NFL helped the family make funeral arrangements. Gore said he also plans to seek counseling services.

Elsewhere, support has come from far and wide, Gore said.

College coaches around the country, police and fire departments in Cheltenham and Philadelphia, Cheltenham parents, the school district, Imhotep administrators and its school community, and youth football organizations have kept him afloat, Gore said.

“If communities can come together like that,” he said, “we should keep it like that and not allow death to be the only reason we come together. That is the power of Philly and the surrounding communities. I am so proud that my son was able to bring so many communities together.”