© 2024 Ideastream Public Media

1375 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115
(216) 916-6100 | (877) 399-3307

WKSU is a public media service licensed to Kent State University and operated by Ideastream Public Media.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Area High School Football Teams Live In Fear Of Gun Violence

John Hay head coach Rodney Decipeda and team captain Javaughn Williams led the Hornets to a Senate League Title.
John Hay head coach Rodney Decipeda and team captain Javaughn Williams led the Hornets to a Senate League Title.

Bullets raced through the air across the street from a Glenville High School football practice last summer forcing students, coaches and parents to drop to the ground until the shootout ended.


Student-athlete Michael Chappman (Right) told

fellow team captain Javaughn Williams to wear

his jersey number before passing away.

A John Hay High School quarterback was simply sitting in a park when a driveby shooting sent him to the hospital. Michael Chappman -- the 17-year-old student-athlete -- was paralyzed from the waist down and died two weeks later. The team wore his jersey number, number 10, and ended practices and games with the same rally cry-- Do it for 10.


The John Hay Football team

won the 2017 Senate

League Championship.

"Mike told me when he was in the hopsital to tell those guys who aren't going hard in practice, he wishses he could be where they're at and remind them that they get to do now what he can only dream of doing," John Hay head football coach Rodney Decipeda said. "As long as I'm a coach here, no one else is ever going to wear number 10."

Gabriel Kramer is a reporter/producer and the host of “NewsDepth,” Ideastream Public Media's news show for kids.