For area football coaches, the tragedy at Roxborough High hits home

Penn Charter football coach Tom Coyle was wrapping up the last 25 minutes of practice on Tuesday evening when he felt the ground shake and heard the rumblings of several helicopters flying nearby.

Coyle figured there was a car accident in the area or that the response was related to the massive junkyard fire in North Philly that occurred right around the evening rush hour. However, once he saw the school’s security walking toward the field, he knew something was wrong.

At 5 p.m., Coyle was made aware that there was a shooting after a football scrimmage at Roxborough High School, and that players were among the victims. He didn’t know any other details –– but immediately he felt his stomach sink.

“Then a couple of administrators came out and we had a brief conversation,” said Coyle, who has been the coach at Penn Charter since 2013. “We were kind of finishing up practice; we made a decision to continue and finish with our practice routine.

“Then we just spent some time with our kids at the end. … We just took a moment. Took time to ground ourselves. We didn’t have much information at this point, but we knew that there were some young people who might have been victims of a violent crime.”

On Tuesday, the scrimmage at Roxborough ended shortly after 4:30 p.m., when five unidentified shooters waited near the football field. Five teens were then ambushed after the shooters exited an SUV and started firing. Nicolas Elizalde, 14, of Havertown, was struck in the chest, and later died of his injuries at Einstein Medical Center. Four others were wounded.

» READ MORE: A 14-year-old boy was killed and 4 other teens wounded in a shooting after a football scrimmage at Roxborough High School

The incident impacts parents, students, and the overall community, said Coyle, who previously led the football program at Father Judge. He also believes the shooting will leave a deeper impact on all students who wish to participate in a sport.

Those students include Lanay Williams, a 14-year-old freshman at Roxborough who said she debated trying out for the school’s cheerleading and volleyball squads. Now, she’s not so sure.

“I was having if, ands, or buts about doing it, but it’s already been like a war zone out here, for no reason,” said Williams, who left school early Wednesday, saying the grief of being at school less than 24 hours after the shooting was too much. “I just don’t understand it, happens all the time. Kids have a beef and then they just start shooting. It’s really scary.”

As for Coyle, he found out that the 14-year-old boy had been fatally shot Tuesday on the 10 p.m. news. As a father of two kids who both participate in sports, he could never imagine that sending them off to practice might put them in harm’s way.

As a coach, he knows how much trust parents put in their hands. His heart broke thinking about calling those parents of the victims, telling them their son had just been shot.

“A 14-year-old young man lost his life, that’s beyond my wildest imagination,” Coyle said as he started to look at his son on the field, who is 17 and a kicker for Penn Charter.

“This is what I consider to be the best two hours of my day. … I have a chance to come out here and practice football. I would be with these guys every day and they enjoy the idea of getting away from schoolwork, getting away from whatever else is going on in their lives, and just being a football player for a couple of hours. That was taken away from these kids.”

At Mastery Charter North, where head coach John Davidson was leading practice, he said his players’ reactions to the news were muted. When Davidson told his teenage daughter, who attends a different school, about the shooting, she expressed shock and sadness and wanted to know more about what happened.

“I would say unfortunately our young men are becoming numb, and that’s a sad thing,” Davidson said. “We’re becoming desensitized to this type of violence and that’s the scary part and that’s what we need to be worried about.

“You should have a heightened level of reaction to hearing such news. [My players] didn’t.”

Mastery North already had measures in place to enhance the team’s safety, according to Davidson.

“Just how we move as a team, getting on and off the bus as a whole, no wandering, players are with coaches and coaches are with players. Then at the end of the game, the bus is ready to go, the field is cleared, and we’re almost into like a military style of movement where everyone is moving at the same time onto the bus.”

“Now [violence] seems to be more rampant, so we’re concerned as coaches, we’re concerned as men, we’re concerned for our players’ well-being at the game, but also during their commutes home, so we’re trying to think about things to put into place for commuting home so we can minimize that [risk] as well.”

After Penn Charter’s practice, Coyle told his players that they should be aware of their surroundings — no matter where they are. Roxborough High School is three miles away from the school, and Penn Charter has students from 108 different ZIP codes. He knows the team felt the impact from the shooting.

“I don’t think there’s anywhere where you are 100% safe,” Coyle said. “I think that anywhere you are, there’s a certain level of evil that kind of exists — people make bad decisions — and yesterday was a decision that impacted the shooters’ lives, the people who were shot, families, and it’s going to have a dramatic effect on everybody in the community.”

» READ MORE: Shooting hits home for mom of victim: ‘We’re getting out of here. This city is getting crazy.’