Florida coaches Billy Napier, Todd Golden concerned in wake of school shooting

Florida soccer coach Billy Napier was stepping off a aircraft Tuesday in Buffalo, New York, when he felt his telephone buzz in his pocket.

Quite than a promising message from a member of his teaching workers, or a response from a recruit, the notification was a breaking information alert informing Napier of the tragedy at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, which claimed the lives of 19 kids and two fourth-grade academics on the college.

Napier considered his circle of relatives. He and his faculty sweetheart, Ali, share three kids — sons Sammy Nelson and Charlie, and a 9-year-old daughter, Annie. 

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‘Discover frequent floor and provide you with options’

Napier was reunited along with his household later that day, and he acknowledged the tragedy dedicated by a lone gunman, which claimed not less than 21 lives, “completely” left an impression on the 42-year-old head coach. 

“We hit the bottom and my telephone registered, and I noticed what had occurred. And, , a number of subjects right here to debate, and I’ve tried as a lot as I can to rise up to hurry,” Napier stated. “A few of these issues are, , they proceed to be points, proper? I imply, you are speaking about two extremely debated subjects once you discuss psychological well being, once you discuss gun management. And I believe clearly, proper, improper or detached right here, you simply really feel strongly for the people who have been affected.”

Napier and Florida males’s basketball coach Todd Golden talked to media Thursday night previous to a talking occasion with the Fightin’ Gator Landing Membership at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. The coaches, as fathers to younger kids, have been requested concerning the Texas taking pictures. The taking pictures at Robb Elementary, which claimed the lives of 19 kids and two academics, marked the twenty seventh college taking pictures up to now in 2022. 

The assault occurred simply 10 days after a racially motivated taking pictures at a Tops grocery store in Buffalo, New York — the town the place Napier had simply touched all the way down to attend a portion of the Buffalo Payments’ organized workforce actions.

As a substitute of taking a tough stance on a necessity for common background checks, elevated gun management or a rise in psychological well being sources — all subjects mentioned frequently, particularly within the aftermath of shootings — Napier expressed hope that the general public’s response to the taking pictures might elicit change relatively than additional division. 

“What I’ve discovered in life, these troublesome issues that we undergo — individually, as a bunch of individuals, whether or not it’s a neighborhood, a college, a nation — these trigger dialogue, these trigger dialog, these trigger individuals to see different vantage factors, no matter the place you stand on these points. What I’d hope right here — probably the most troublesome issues in my life that I’ve been by, these struggles brought on development, they created totally different views, brought on you to have integrity and actually inform your self the reality once you look within the mirror, and provide you with options,” Napier stated. “That’s what we have to do: Have one of the best and the brightest from each side, each vantage factors, to return collectively, discover frequent floor and provide you with options.”

Napier didn’t wish to additional politicize Tuesday’s taking pictures; he advocated for cooperation with out specifying which options he’d prefer to see enacted at both the state or federal degree.

“It’s a tragedy and there’s issues we will be taught from this, however you’re feeling terrible for the individuals concerned,” he stated. “I’m simply hopeful we will discover frequent floor. Typically these difficulties trigger division as a substitute of individuals coming collectively to seek out options.”

Like Napier, Golden is a father to younger kids, and he, too, was left in dismay and unable to supply an answer to stop one other tragedy. 

“It’s totally powerful. And I haven’t got the solutions, I can’t faux to, nevertheless it’s regarding,” Golden stated. “Particularly with simply the best way that it is reported on and, , it simply turns into a really divisive subject. I want we’d have higher solutions to what has been taking place too usually.”

They might not have solutions to supply, however Golden and Napier joined the refrain of these calling for an answer for what led to the lack of 21 lives at Robb Elementary. 

“Clearly, I believe nearly all of individuals on this nation are actually good individuals and wish to work in the direction of an answer versus making it a divisive political state of affairs…” Golden stated. “However as a father or mother, it is regarding as a result of it is taking place far too usually.”