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PARKLAND –
Annoyed if it did not happen again.
Willis May, football coach at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, has had this superstition for several years. At least he calls superstition, even if others may consider it a limit obsession.
Whenever he finds a penny in heads-up on match day, good things happen. That's why his former offensive lineman had the habit of planting pennies for the boss just to simplify things.
Complete coverage of Parkland shooting
Call it weird if you want, but on Friday night, May does not hear about it – not after her Eagles defeated South Broward 23-6 in their first home game.
"Yeah, 17, is not it?" Said May about the margin of victory.
Seventeen is a large number at Douglas High School. No, check that. This is the most important number because 17 souls were lost February 14 in the tragedy that shook this school, this community and this nation.
In the countdown of the coup de send, the month of May was marked by a Gatorade …
"… and there's a penny, on the head, sitting where Gatorade was," said May. "Just sit there. I do not know about you but I believe in these things and Aaron Feis knows that I would chase the entire locker room to try to find a dime on the heads.
Feis was a graduate of Douglas High and the coach of May's offensive line who was killed in the rampage while saving students' lives.
Try to tell May that Feis still does not have his old things to plant money.
Pennies of paradise.
"It makes my job easier right now," said May, who also found a penny in his hotel room before last week's victory in Georgia.
May obviously knows what her team is facing. How can this football team be a galvanizing force on a campus struggling with how to get started again without ever forgetting the 14 students and three faculty members killed. Pressure?
"Last week, I just said," Guys, we have to play for ourselves, "said May. "I mean, we want to make them proud, but we have to play for ourselves."
Otherwise, it's overwhelming?
"Anyway, it's overwhelming," said May. "It was overwhelming from the first day."
That's probably why Douglas did everything in his power to make the atmosphere inside the stadium look like a regular game on Friday. If you had somehow wandered without knowing the tragedy, you would never have thought something was wrong. There was no tribute before the match. No silence. Just Friday night lights and two high school teams that go there.
"Tonight we were playing for us," said Christian Higgins, receiver / safety. "Everything else is about them, but tonight was for us."
Which does not mean that the 17 are still far from their minds.
"It was difficult," said Higgins. "But we just went crazy. Mad, and taking on the field. "
For a while, the Eagles seemed to win 17-0. That was the score before quarterback Ryan Kavanaugh scored on a 1-yard dive in the third quarter to put the game aside.
"We have a stronger bond than anyone here," Kavanaugh said.
May and Feis have had it and the players know it all.
"He found a lucky penny and he really believes that Feis has put it there," Kavanaugh said. "We can feel them here. We know that they are with us.
As if someone needed to remember, May said so much in his postgame talking to his players.
"You have 17 angels watching you," he said.
With this, the players have all come together in close cooperation.
"One two three Feis!" They shouted.
Two down, many more tests to do. There is a lot more to Friday night getting closer to the measure of healing that they can hope to achieve.
"I'm so proud of them," said May. "I'm happy for them. If kids were winning or deserved to be 2-0 at this point, I have to say it's my guy.
"They went through hell."
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