It was early evening on Sept. 21 when shots rang out as the Montgomery Village Chiefs, a youth football team for kids age 13 and younger, warmed up for its homecoming game at South Valley Park in Gaithersburg.
Suddenly all was chaos as the players, getting ready behind an adjacent elementary school, frantically ran into the nearby woods, parents screamed for their children, cars raced out of the parking lot and police cruisers arrived, according to Melinda Elder, the mother of player Delano Green.
“It wasn’t just one shot. It was about 40,” she recalled to MoCo360 on Wednesday.
According to police, officers responded at about 5:45 p.m. to the park. A 17-year-old teen was struck by a bullet during the shooting, which occurred between two groups in the parking lot. The teen suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was taken to an area hospital.
In the aftermath, Elder said, the shooting left the organization “torn,” with parents worried about safety and whether the team would be able to continue its season.
“We had to take a lot of steps to get back to where we could practice and them not have to worry. We also were concerned that once we got back out to South Valley Park, that there would be some reminders of the experience they felt during that day,” Elder said.
And when the Chiefs persevered, finished their season and won the Capital Beltway League championship earlier this month, another hurdle arose: It appeared the team would not be able to raise enough money to help the players’ families pay the cost of traveling to Naples, Florida, for the American Youth Football National Championship games to be held Dec. 9 through 14.
“There was a couple of weeks there that it got a little scary because it was going to be players’ parents trying to fund their own player to go down, which was going to run almost $800 per player,” Elder said. “It’s a lot of money especially with it being the holiday season.”
That’s when the Washington Commanders came to the rescue. On Tuesday evening the Commanders surprised the young players by showing up at their practice session and announcing the NFL team would cover the costs of the Chiefs’ trip to Florida.
Head Coach Jonathan Frazier told MoCo360 Wednesday the support from the Commanders was like having a weight lifted from his shoulders.
“It was just like an early Christmas present,” Frazier said. “That was the type of reaction when I got the news from [the Commanders]. So much appreciation and just gratefulness for them for just even giving us the time of day.”
The event was like a “full circle moment” for the team, Frazier said, as the Chiefs returned to South Valley Park for practice and were surprised by several former Commanders – Santana Moss, Fred Smoot, Josh Morgan, Billy McMullen, Tanard Jackson and Tim Hightower – who shared the news and ran drills with the players.
The surprise came weeks after the Division 1 team won their regional championship in overtime in and subsequent fundraising efforts to pay for the Chiefs’ trip to Florida had stalled. Parents were worried after the team had raised less than $2,000 out of the $40,000 expected cost.
That’s when Elder’s mother reached out to the Commanders youth football division to share the story of the team’s season, Elder said.
After receiving a response from Dan Levy, the Commanders’ director of youth football, the team made plans to travel to Naples. According to Levy, the Commanders’ donation will help cover travel and accommodations for the team’s trip.
“We just thought there was a lot of synergy between overcoming adversity and supporting a team in need when they needed it, so that they could fight for their dreams. That was really our goal,” Levy told MoCo360 Wednesday.
A brush with gun violence
Before the Sept. 21 shooting, the season had begun on a high note, celebrating the players’ final season playing youth football before heading to high school next year. On that day, the team was hosting its homecoming game – “what is supposed to be the best game of the season,” Elder said.
Instead, the team and players’ families were left shaken by the brush with gun violence.
“This is something that could truly, completely end a season,” Elder said. “And so our attention became, how do we, you know, with this being our last ride, how do we create a safe environment where our players can come back out, practice, prepare for games?”
The team halted practices and games for two weeks. The Chiefs then relocated to a field at Roberto Clemente Middle School in Germantown and didn’t play a game on their home field at the park for the rest of the season, Frazier said. It took time, he said, for the parents and players to feel comfortable returning to play. The team arranged to have a police officer at the field during practices and games.
“I don’t think it should be taken lightly how serious [the shooting] not only derailed our season, but derailed people’s perspective of the neighborhood.” Frazier said. It “was a lot to try to repair that.”
Despite the challenges, the team beat Washington, D.C.’s Southeast Tarheels and became champions. According to Frazier, the Chiefs won by recovering a fumble and scoring after the game went into overtime with the score tied at 0-0.
“That was like kind of an epitome of our whole year. Tough, tough — but making it happen when it counts and persevering,” Frazier said.
After the championship win, the Chiefs began rallying the team’s community to help raise money for the trip to the national championships. There they would play other top teams from around the country, an experience that “some of them may not ever have again,” Frazier said.
The team set up a GoFundMe page on Nov. 9 that had raised just $1,860 as of Thursday. Elder said the team is still accepting donations.
Now, with the help of the Commanders, Frazier, Elder and the team are planning to head south in a little over a week.
“It takes a village,” Frazier said of the efforts to send the team to Florida, echoing a motto he said he tells parents and players.
“The demographic of kids that we’re dealing with, you know, we’re dealing with a lot of kids who come from single parent homes, or where, you know, raising a lump sum of money like this, it’s going to be tough,” he said.
Despite knowing what could have happened when the shots began flying that September evening, the team and its community persevered, he said.
“They could have lost teammates. They could have lost little brothers. They could have lost their parents. All in a split second,” Frazier said. “So, the fact that they even have the mental toughness to come back and still dedicate themselves fully to each other, to their coaches, to the organization, I just want to share extra spotlight on them.”
