The fortunes of one Texas town and the football program that makes it proud changed dramatically in the matter of hours on Friday night. First, Iraan ran past Munday, 40-12, to reach the Texas Class 2A state semifinals. Then, with all in attendance celebrating the stirring victory, a bus carrying the team’s cheerleaders and their sponsors was struck on the highway, leaving one dead and dozens injured.
The entire stirring scene was covered in depth by the New York Times in this remarkable, must-read piece, which happened to be covering Iraan’s victory and then swiveled to report on the story as a tragic accident. Among the striking details from this remarkable piece was the revelation that Iraan lineman Steven Garlock’s mother was injured and aunt died in the crash, dimming what was to be an epic celebration of a football team reaching the state semifinals for the first time in two decades.
The team itself was still celebrating its momentous accomplishment at a Mexican restaurant near the Colorado City stadium which hosted the quarterfinal matchup when it first learned of the crash of the bus carrying six cheerleaders, the varsity cheerleading sponsor (Garlock’s mother) and the head of the booster club, who happened to be the elder Garlock’s sister. The Indians gathered together to pray rather before heading back on to the dangerous road on a rainy, slippery night that led a tractor trailer to lose control when braking suddenly, sliding across the highway median and striking the small bus holding the cheerleaders and the two adults. None of the six cheerleaders on the bus were in seats with seatbelts, which left them all at higher risk for serious injury.
According to the New York Times, most were unresponsive when other Iraan natives arrived at the scene. They were transported to a medical center nearby, where relatives and members of the football team en route back to Iraan stopped to check on their status. The next morning the team gathered at the school to try and make sense of everything that had happened a night earlier. The only thing they could make sense of was just how wild the emotional swings between the two events had been.
“The emotional swing last night was crazy,” Iraan Football Coach Mark Kirchhoff told his players, per the New York Times. “I can tell you how I’m feeling. You have sort of a guilty feeling in that you’ve got that feeling of euphoria and happiness for the game. And then the other swing of the pendulum, the surreal, what-the-hell-just-happened tragedy. It conflicts you inside.”
Added Iraan superintendent Kevin Allen: “You thought you were going to win the race but instead you drove off a cliff.”