Playoff Victory Provides A Little Hope For School After Shooting

CHARDON, Ohio — On a good night, maybe 100 teens fill up the wildly vocal and creative student section that calls itself the “Chardon Crazies.”

Chardon needed four buses — two more than planned — to transport the number of students and all the emotion that came with them to a Division I sectional boys basketball game against Madison.

But not just any basketball game. Chardon’s first sporting event since tragedy rocked the town, its school and Northeast Ohio.

The first event, period, since a student pulled a gun from his bag Monday morning and killed three classmates, seriously injuring two others.

“We all need to just be together as a student body,” said Chardon senior Matt Leskovec, the Crazies’ leader. “This is, like, fundamental to our healing process.”

Fans on both sides, Chardon and Madison alike, wore the Hilltoppers school colors or pinned black and red ribbons on their chests. Many fans had no Madison or Chardon connection, and no particular interest in basketball. They just felt the need to be there.

They spoke of a game as therapeutic, a respite, a distraction — even if only for a few hours.

Basketball, of all things, provided a bridge from the week’s horror to the first day back in class Friday — and to today’s funerals for two of the three students.

“It’s not about winning tonight,” said Stacie Malone.

Malone, a Chardon graduate, and her husband, Jeff, said they probably wouldn’t have come if not for the need to show their support.

They have three daughters — one a Chardon graduate, one a sophomore there and the third a freshman who was in the school cafeteria where the shooting began.

“I’m a combat vet. I’ve done two tours in Iraq,” said Stacie Malone. “But nothing can prepare you for this.”

Euclid, as tournament host, was prepared, with red ribbons tied around trees, poles and on the stairs of the gym entrance.

Tournament organizers set up a donation box. A Euclid High School anti-violence group, Stand Up!, gave the Chardon players T-shirts and dog tags and performed at halftime.

As Euclid senior Rebecca Arko belted out an emotional national anthem, the Crazies swayed, cheerleaders for both teams held hands at midcourt and the players and coaches stood with arms around one another’s shoulders behind them.

They remained united for a moment of silence for the victims and their families.

“We are . . . Chardon!” shouted the Crazies as they bounced up and down just before tipoff.

Both teams took the court to cheers from both sides — the Hilltoppers to a standing ovation.

The Hilltoppers raced to a quick 12-4 lead, almost as if floating on air, but the edge quickly vanished. By the end of three quarters, though, Chardon held a commanding 62-46 lead and rode it — buoyed by the Crazies nonstop rocking — to a 78-59 win.

Chardon’s second-year coach, Nick Gustin, had said a few days earlier after practice that his players were just glad to get a basketball in their hands again.

Gustin has been flooded with texts of support from athletic directors and coaches throughout the Chagrin Valley Conference, as well as coaches at the University of Pittsburgh, where the Chardon team attended a summer basketball camp.

Ironically, Gustin, a Madison graduate, was a volunteer assistant coach on the Madison bench on March 6, 1998. That was the night Shaw’s David Parker suffered a heart attack on this same Euclid basketball floor — in the same sectional tournament — and later died.

Basketball offered a temporary distraction then, too. And Madison again stepped up Thursday with an opponent’s embrace — wearing black Chardon T-shirts during warm-ups and red socks with their royal blue and white uniforms.

“You tell them it’s only a game,” Madison coach Pat Moran said earlier, “and that’s what you try to focus on. . . . But it’s not only a game. It’s almost a return to innocence of being kids for a short time.”

The two teams and their coaches know one another well. Many are involved in the same summer basketball camps. This was their third meeting after splitting their first games.

Given the circumstances, Gustin said, there was no one else they would rather have played.

They took the floor knowing the winner plays Brush on Saturday.

But Thursday, only one game and one thing mattered.

“It’s about the kids, and they were able to be kids tonight,” said Chardon Athletic Director Doug Snyder, collecting himself in the postgame news conference. “And all us adults took a little comfort in that.”