Life, death and promises

 Their names are Lavel Davis Jr., and Devin Chandler, and D'Sean Perry, and they are gone now. One was from South Carolina. One was from North Carolina. And one had come all the way north from Miami to Charlottesville, Va., just down the hill from a place called Monticello, which was Thomas Jefferson's home.

Like Lavel and Devin, D'Sean came to play football for the University of Virginia. 

Like Lavel and Devin, a Cavaliers coach sat in his living room and said, son, we think the world of you, and we'd really like you to come play for us. You'll love Charlottesville; it's a beautiful place. And they love their football. And on top of that, UVA is one of the finest universities in America, which means you'll also be getting a first-class education.

So D'Sean came north and Lavel and Devin came a little less farther north, and now they're gone. Shot to death by another student, allegedly, who also came to Virginia to play football but hadn't been on the team since 2018.

And now we say this: This is not supposed to happen. It's what we always say, right? Over and over and over again, as if we're desperately trying to convince ourselves.

This is not supposed to happen, and then it does, and when do we get to the place where we finally stop saying that? When does it happen often enough that we finally have to admit it's just who and what we are here in America the shooting gallery? And it's who and what we are because no one in a position to do something about it gives enough of a damn?

All I know is, three days ago Lavel and Devin and D'Sean were playing football for the University of Virginia, and now they never will again. Two days ago they got on a bus to go on a field trip to D.C., and now they never will again.

Getting to shot to death is not supposed to be part of the college experience. Getting shot to death while sitting on a charter bus after a field trip is not supposed to be part of the college experience. What parent turns their child over to that coach in the living room thinking that's even a remote possibility?

What coach thinks that?

And so I'm sitting here in the den shaking my head at our naivete, or maybe just at our stubborn faith in This Is Not Supposed To Happen. And I'm thinking of Virginia head coach Tony Elliott, and what he's got to be feeling right now, and if it's anything like that scene in "We Are Marshall" when the new head coach, Jack Lengyel, comes to visit former assistant coach Red Dawson after the plane crash that wiped out the entire football program.

Dawson tells him that his first year at Marshall, he sat in 20 living rooms, and talked to 20 mothers, and promised those 20 mothers that if their son came to Marshall, he'd look after them. And now they were all gone.

"So let me ask you, Jack," Dawson says in the movie. "How am I supposed to look a mother in the eye and promise her anything ever again?"

How indeed?