‘Play for them’: For Boys’ Latin, football was an escape in Friday’s win

Friday was a school day at Boys’ Latin Charter School, but it wasn’t a normal one. It was a school week unlike others, no matter how intertwined the gun violence epidemic in Philadelphia becomes with being a teenager in the city.

Tuesday, the school’s junior varsity football team had finished playing in a scrimmage at Roxborough High School when shortly after 4:30 p.m. five gunmen fired more than 60 shots, striking five teenagers and leaving a 14-year-old Roxborough High School football player dead.

None of the Boys’ Latin players was struck, but some of them witnessed the incident. And for others, having been exposed to the trauma of gun violence, the incident brought back unpleasant memories, according to Dr. William Hayes, the school’s CEO.

Then, on Thursday, the charter’s middle school and high school were briefly placed on lockdown after police said a student was observed on the bus and later found to be carrying a loaded magazine.

» READ MORE: For area football coaches, the tragedy at Roxborough High hits home

The two incidents, Hayes said, needed to be addressed. School staff decided at the end of the day Thursday that Friday would be a “self-care” day. So students came to school Friday and were treated to a day of music, food, culinary arts, coloring, game rooms, and learning methods of mindfulness meditation.

For the varsity football team, that school day was followed by a 3 p.m. kickoff vs. Martin Luther King High School at the South Philadelphia Super Site. But even the game’s time was a reminder of the week that was. Originally scheduled for 7 p.m., the game was moved up to start in the afternoon for safety concerns, Hayes said. Player attendance was another reminder. Coach Marcus Fulton said his team was missing 12 players whose parents were concerned about their safety.

“Life is way more important than football,” Fulton said. “If any parent was nervous or had any concerns, I totally understood. I get it. I didn’t want them to feel like we were forcing the game on their child.”

The Boys’ Latin-MLK game wasn’t the only game impacted this weekend. Northeast High School, which had its JV team at the Roxborough scrimmage earlier in the week, didn’t play its varsity game with Olney on Thursday. On Friday, two other high school football games in Montgomery County and Southwest Philadelphia were called off due to potential threats.

Hours before the game Friday, Martin Luther King coach Malik Jones tweeted: “Hugs and ‘be safe!’ is replacing high fives and ‘good luck!’”

In a meeting with the Boys’ Latin football team Wednesday, a day after the shooting incident, Hayes said he wanted to address the feeling of normalcy that guns and the teenage experience are becoming.

Hayes said one of the first things he told the team was: “This is not normal, and I don’t want you to ever think that this is what you are deserving of, or this is just what is natural to being a young Black male in the city of Philadelphia. It’s not OK, and the feelings you are processing are true and they are valid. You shouldn’t feel like this is something you have to endure and be OK with it.

“There can be something different and there should be something different and you’re deserving of peace and joy and fun. The city has to work to ensure that you have access to that. So I don’t want you to ever say that this is what it is and this is what it always will be by nature of me being in Philadelphia.’”

» READ MORE: The mother of Roxborough shooting victim Nicolas Elizalde, 14, has a message: ‘He isn’t a number’

The school made counselors available this week and provided opportunities for students to express themselves and what they were feeling, part of what Hayes called the school’s “holistic and trauma-informed” approach.

Friday, Boys’ Latin football players said it was a great day to just relax a little.

“It calmed us down, just being able to hang out with our friends,” sophomore Semaj Carmichael said.

Junior Jayden Baker said he was able to block out what happened earlier in the week and just focus on football Friday afternoon.

“Football is an escape,” he said. “It’s easy to let your hair go free, and let everything go loose and play your game.”

Baker said he told some of the younger players on the varsity and junior varsity teams: “I know it’s a hard thing, but fight through the adversity and play for those that got injured, got hurt, got killed. Play for them and show them that you can fight through adversity.”

“The goal was no matter what happens to play hard and play fast,” Baker added. “Even though we had an eventful week, we just wanted to come out and play Boys’ Latin football.”

They did that. Boys’ Latin forced four Martin Luther King turnovers and turned one of them into the game-deciding touchdown, a 13-yard run by senior quarterback Jamarr Williams, who also fought through contact to get the two-point try across the goal line to give the game its 14-12 final score.

Later, when the final whistle sounded, Fulton threw his arms into the air and ran onto the field to celebrate with some of his players. The teams walked through the handshake line and there were plenty of hugs to be had between coaches and players.

Then the Boys’ Latin players let loose. One of them did a backflip. Others danced and cheered. Mostly all of them smiled.

“These are the type of wins that aren’t just about football,” Fulton told his players as they came together in the north end zone. “They’re about life.”

Said Hayes: “We underestimate the weight of compounded stress and compounded trauma. The body and the soul can only carry so much. So sometimes you just need to stop and decompress.”

» READ MORE: The Roxborough school shooting has educators asking: If a football scrimmage isn’t safe, what is?