Celebrating Excellence Everywhere: Eastwood, Plano game will offer chance for communities to heal

Story Courtesy of El Paso Times

High school football is like a religion in Texas.

The El Paso Eastwood and Plano Senior High teams are hopeful their beloved game can help heal their communities jolted by the worst attack on Latinos in U.S. history.

The Aug. 3 Walmart mass shooting, a racist act of domestic terrorism that left 22 El Paso and Juarez residents dead, linked the two vastly different Texas cities.

"We have the great opportunity to showcase how great our school is, our community is and El Paso, in general," Eastwood High School head football coach Julio Lopez told his team as he prepared.

The game, which was initially canceled by Plano school leaders 12 days after the Walmart shooting citing safety concerns, was rescheduled for Thursday at The Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, an indoor stadium, after it drew national attention.

The white gunman is a 2017 Plano Senior graduate. The 21-year-old remains under suicide watch at the Downtown El Paso County Jail.

Plano Senior head football coach Jaydon McCullough said he was disappointed by the thought that the Eastwood game wouldn't be played. 

Fans from both cities are determined to come together in a show of unity against racism and violence. Both teams are expected to wear “El Paso Strong,” stickers and will also meet at mid-field to embrace each other and pray.

Football is a game, McCullough said, that teaches life lessons. How to coexist with people and staying positive are lessons from the game that are important to him.

“Let's respect each other,” McCullough said. “We all have different religions, cultures, beliefs. And guess what? We can all coexist and we can all get along.”

Football has come to the rescue before when communities have been devastated by pain and suffering. After Hurricane Harvey in 2017, two coastal communities hard hit by the Category 4 storm played games determined to show their fans their towns were going to be okay.

Lopez said he hopes high school football will unify the Lone Star State again.

"We really believe that we're playing for the city of El Paso," Lopez said. "We really believe that it is our job to honor our city the right way. ... We want to make sure we're showcasing how resilient El Paso is, how tough El Paso is."

An unfortunate connection

Plano and El Paso are separated by more than 600 miles across Texas' vast landscape. 

El Paso was settled aside the Rio Grande at the base of a mountain range that separates Texas from Mexico. With a population that is 83 percent Hispanic, it considers itself a bi-national community.

Plano, largely white, is an affluent suburb that sits along the North Central Expressway, one of the busiest highways in the booming Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

A game Lopez said offered his players a chance to face quality competition in a different part of the state. 

But in the days after the shooting, Plano ISD officials decided to cancel the game, drawing widespread criticism.

A statement from Plano ISD cited safety concerns and the game's proximity to the attack as the reason for cancelling it. The district also stated there was no specific threats made about the game.

Social media blew up when news of the decision broke. Veteran Dallas sportscaster Dale Hansen offered a take that went viral on social media decrying Plano ISD's decision and even politicians chimed in on the decision. 

"After the attack against El Paso, Plano ISD had an opportunity to join us in sending a message against racism and violence," said U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat who represents El Paso.

After the attack against El Paso, Plano ISD had an opportunity to join us in sending a message against racism and violence. Our kids deserve better. They should be allowed to play.

Together we can show our nation that with unity, we can transcend obstacles. #ElPasoStrong

— Rep. Veronica Escobar (@RepEscobar) August 15, 2019

The game was originally scheduled to be played at Kimbrough Stadium in Plano, an outdoor venue. 

Less than 24 hours after the cancellation, the game was back on thanks to public pressure and Frisco ISD offering up the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, an indoor facility headquarters to the Dallas Cowboys, as a venue to play it. It was also rescheduled for Thursday night. 

“When we found out about the cancellation, we were disappointed…," Eastwood player Isaac Pedregon said. "To get the game back means a lot to us, to our school, to El Paso."

Rudy Tellez, an Eastwood junior, sat in the lobby of a Plano hotel soon after his teammates arrived in North Texas on Wednesday. They traveled overnight on a bus to get there. 

The 16-year-old wore a blue, grey and white Eastwood windbreaker as he reflected on his state of mind going into the game.

“We’re one big family, one big football family together,” he said. “And I hope that these two communities can come together again and be good to each other.”

Freddy Klayel-Avalos, the founder of Shine On El Paso, said that to many in El Paso, the perception was that the Plano officials felt the entire El Paso community was unsafe after the game was canceled. 

"A lot of people were arguing that the person who had come to El Paso to shoot people at Walmart was actually from their community, and it made no sense as to why they were ostracizing these high school kids from our community," Klayel-Avalos, who is also an El Paso ISD trustee, said. 

McCullough said although disappointed in the initial decision, he supported superintendent Sara Bonser to cancel, but now that it is back on, the game offers an opportunity to learn. 

“I support my boss,” McCullough said. “If she says safety issue, then I agree with her. But I'm glad, I'm very excited and I'm very thankful and grateful that we're getting to play this game for lots of reasons.”

Thursday night lights

Outside of Plano ISD's administration and school board, many in Plano wanted the game to be played.

"If anybody's gonna cancel the game, it should be El Paso, not Plano," said Jennifer Davis, whose son plays for Plano. "You know, if anybody is going to be scared ... it was just ... a poor decision and it doesn't reflect most of the people in this community." 

Plano student Lily Ray also wasn't happy about it. When she heard the game had been canceled, the high school senior turned to her mom to complain. 

The game was something Ray and fellow students had been talking about even before it was canceled, she said. They wanted to find a way to show support for El Paso after the shooting.

She thought the game was a platform for her community to reach out to El Paso residents and show them the shooter, who had written a manifesto expressing racist views championing white supremacy, isn't representative of Plano.

“I just thought it was like a really cool chance to connect with the El Paso community after everything that had happened,” Ray said.

Christian Sabatini, a Plano Senior football player, said other students also wanted the game to happen.

“They wanted to see the two communities can come together and play football and enjoy each other and be around each other,” he said.

Adolf Chikanza II sat at a Chick-fil-a not too far from the Plano Senior campus with his friends during their  lunch, and echoed Ray and Sabatini. 

The high school senior said it's good for the two schools to play the game.

"If you cancel the game it shows that, I don't know, we didn't care, you know that we're running away from the problem," he said, as he continued to eat his lunch. 

His friends sat at the table next to him listening, sometimes chiming in as he spoke. 

Ray’s mom told her to write a letter to the superintendent, but Ray knew that would be too slow. They landed on a change.org petition. It had more than 600 signatures by the time Ray closed it down after the game was reinstated.

"I feel like right now, with not only this shooting but everything that's going on in our country with talking about gun control and all of these rights and everything, young people more and more are standing up for things they believe in," Ray said. "I feel like it was an opportunity for me personally to stand up for something I believe in, but also show that I'm not the only one." 

In a statement Wednesday, Plano ISD Superintendent Bonser said she stands by the initial decision to cancel the game but is thankful the game is being hosted a venue that “allows for enhanced safety and security measures to help ensure that all participants can enjoy the game.”

Bonser said the “important and impactful” game is an “opportunity to unite our communities in an atmosphere that is defined by harmony, graciousness and respect for all, and rejects being defined by the actions of others.”

“It also provides the opportunity to come together to honor and pay tribute to all of the citizens of El Paso, and to model our students’ example of unity, fairness and unyielding support of one another,” she said.

Davis, the Plano mother, said she’s been collecting money for those in El Pasothrough GoFundMe.

Klayel-Avalos said Shine On El Paso is working with 915 Tours to set up bus rides from El Paso to the game.

Starting a conversation
Chikanza, 17, said he was surprised when he learned the shooter was from Plano Senior and even took off work to make sure he can attend the game. 

He said since the shooting, he and his friends have been talking about gun control and how it could be better in the country. But when it comes to discussing the shooting at school, he said he feels it’s discouraged.

"We should raise awareness because it's too much, too many mass shootings going on and people are worried about other things," he said. 

Chikanza said he thinks conversations should be had about race, gun control and mental illness. Though he noted that he doesn't believe the shooter in El Paso was mentally ill. 

"You should just start (conversations) head on, not sugar coat anything because it's real life," he said.

Davis, who has lived in Plano for about two decades, said she wants people to know she and her network don’t teach "the hate that, that kid had in his heart."

She said the city has had the reputation of being where the rich, white kids live, but it's not that anymore. 

"That is the stereotype that we would like to get away from, that unfortunately the school district didn't help us with," she said. 

Lopez said he didn't broach the subject of race with his Eastwood players after the shooting. Whether or not to address it is something he's gone back and forth with. 

He said locker rooms across the country are filled with people of different races, ethnicities, different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. 

"The important thing to understand is that the game and football is not representative of what that guy stood for," Lopez said. "Because football, if you look at a locker room, a locker room is so diverse. You all come together as a family from these different backgrounds for one common goal."

Lopez said a locker room is an example of diversity, and football offers a chance to bring two diverging communities together to heal.

"For us, it's just an opportunity to unite two very different communities," he said.