HOUSTON — As I made my way into the gates of the Houston Texans practice field at the Methodist Training Center on Wednesday, I noticed the back of the t-shirts being worn by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Cal McNair and his wife Hannah, vice president of the Texans Foundation.
The white cursive font that stood out on the bright orange shirts had only one word that will never be forgotten in the state of Texas or the nation.
Uvalde.
As I continued to look around the field, I noticed that head coach DeMeco Ryans, general manager Nick Caserio, assistant coaches, players, and staff members were also wearing the shirts in unison.
The Texans organization wore the shirts in honor of National Gun Violence Awareness Day and Wear Orange Day, observed on the first Friday in June. It originated on June 2, 2015, in honor of Hadiya Pendleton, 15, who was shot and killed on a playground in Chicago, Illinois, on January 29, 2013.
One year ago, the nation mourned as a gunman killed 19 children and two educators at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. The Houston Texans, along with volunteers and sponsors, made their way toward the city to help the families of the victims and the city as they mourned over the tragic incident.
They also honored the victims of the Uvalde Elementary school shooting before their season opener against the Indianapolis Colts last season. Players from the Uvalde high school football team were in attendance as the team wore “Uvalde Strong” decals on their helmets. The Texans organization and players donated $600,000 to the Robb Elementary School memorial fund.
“We decided to wear orange shirts ahead of “Wear Orange Day” in a couple of days in support of, first and foremost, the one-year anniversary of the Uvalde school shooting,” said coach Ryans when asked about the meaning of the shirts. “We want to make sure that we support that situation and just the senseless gun violence that is going on. We want to use our voice as an organization and as a team to make sure that we put an end to it.”
“It’s senseless shootings that are going on around our country that sometimes we can just grow numb to it because it happens so often. We just have to bring awareness to it and understand the severity of the situation, where a lot of kids, unfortunately, are losing their lives to something that senseless, and we just make sure we support and get out in front of it. As I told our players this morning, it’s bigger than just being great football players. I want our guys to understand that we’re more than just players. We’re also great men, great leaders in our communities, and our guys are in support of it, and I’m proud of the way they represented from last year, seeing it from afar, all the way up until now.”
“I’ve lost a cousin to gun violence, and unfortunately, a week ago, another cousin of mine was shot as an innocent bystander,” said Texans HC DeMeco Ryans about his personal experience with gun violence. The team wore shirts in honor of Gun Violence Awareness Day on Friday. pic.twitter.com/wd4udQBeUv
— #SARGE (@BigSargeSportz) May 31, 2023
Coach Ryans also has felt the effects of gun violence personally after losing family members to the senseless act as recently as last week. With the rise of school shootings in the United States, Ryans thinks about the safety of his three young children when they are in class.
“I have three young kids,” Ryans said. “So, when you send your kids off to school, and you have to even have that thought in the back of my mind that man, ‘are my kids going to be safe, am I going to see them’, it’s not the mindset you want to have when you’re dropping your kids off at school. For all of us, it’s something we shouldn’t have to worry about, it’s something we shouldn’t have to discuss, but it’s here. We want to make sure we bring awareness to it because it is a real issue that hits home for a lot of people.”
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