Mass shootings hit home with coach
NORFOLK — Ricky Rahne hasn’t talked to his team about the most recent mass shootings in America because he doesn’t think he could possibly stay ahead of the conversation.
But the second-year Old Dominion football coach is certainly equipped to have it.
Rahne grew up in Morrison, Colorado, about a 40-minute drive from the site of Monday’s deadly grocery store shooting that took the lives of 10 people, including a police officer, in Boulder.
Rahne attended a high school whose main rival was Columbine High, the site of 13 shooting deaths in the spring of 1999. Rahne said his firefighter father, Ray, was first on the scene that day.
So during a post-practice session with the media on Tuesday, after talking about his team’s spring progress, Rahne discussed the issue for nearly six minutes.
“At some point, we’ve got to figure out what we’re doing in this country to get that fixed,” said Rahne, a father of two sons. “I think that it’s hard for me to explain to my sons why the flag always flies at half-mast. Eventually, as a country, we’re going to figure out that the flag flying at halfmast can’t be the norm for our youth, and that’s what it is right now.”
A 21-year-old suspect, now in police custody, opened fire outside and inside a Boulder supermarket. It followed a series of shootings at Atlanta-area spas that took the lives of seven women and one man, most of them of Asian descent, on March 16.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday called on Congress for tougher gun laws as a result of the massacres.
Rahne said he gave serious consideration to speaking to his team after the latest tragedy.
ipation opportunities for women athletes, resources for coaches and other essentials.
Prior to the launch of All In on Wednesday, an alumni couple anonymously contributed $5 million for the athletic department to use for pressing needs and priorities. The gift, according to a W&M statement, was an expression of support for President Katherine A. Rowe’s leadership and a show of confidence in W&M athletics’ future.
Amid that backdrop, many of W&M’s programs are raising markedly more money than in the past to help ensure self-sustainability. Placed on the chopping block primarily because of increasing budget deficits in the athletic department, the seven teams that faced elimination have shifted into highgear fundraising — some even before their reinstatement.
Men’s and women’s swimming and gymnastics, men’s indoor and outdoor track and volleyball have all met their fundraising targets for fiscal year 2021, as has men’s tennis. Only a handful of programs lag well below the goals set by the athletic department.
“It’s huge that we had success in FY21 because it shows there’s a sincere community behind those sports, but we have to sustain that momentum,” Martin said. “So, what we said in ending the potential end-dates for any program, is that every program at William & Mary is going to be dependent on building a community of support from alumni and friends who are committed to the financial sustainability of this program.”
Rowe said, “We must invest in our future, not just for athletics, but for the entire university.
“An investment in our student-athletes is an investment in William & Mary.”