Orlando massacre close to home for Argos’ WR
Kenny Shaw lives a kilometre from deadly Florida shooting
GUELPH— Kenny Shaw was two weeks into training camp with the Toronto Argonauts on Sunday, waist-deep into a time of year for an athlete that’s all-consuming, especially when you’re trying to solidify your spot on a team.
The 24-year-old receiver had gone to bed Saturday night with his team’s pre-season win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats earlier that day still fresh in his mind. He had two catches for 22 yards, his best one a 17-yard grab that served as his team’s first play of the day. He also returned a punt for five yards.
At this time of year, the plays made and plays missed become the sheep you count when your head hits the pillow. Life goes on like this for the month of June for players across the CFL, the bubble they step into becoming nearly impenetrable.
The bubble popped temporarily for Shaw after he woke up on Sunday morning, when the Orlando native saw the news of the mass murder at a gay nightclub a kilometre from where he lives. Forty-nine people were killed and 53 were wounded in the worst mass-murder in American history.
“Everybody I know is all right, but the families (affected), you can’t take that back,” Shaw said Tuesday.
Shaw grew up in Orlando, playing his high school football at Dr. Phillips High School, where his 122 receptions still stand as the school’s record. He moved upstate to Tallahassee and played four years at Florida State University, winning a national championship with the Seminoles in 2013.
Hearing about the slaughter of innocents so close to home while he’s so far away was difficult.
“The last few days have been a wake-up call,” he said. “Even a city as beautiful as Orlando can be terrorized. I was checking in on everyone.”
He immediately called his mother, father and sister in Orlando to make sure they were OK, then started calling friends. Mass shootings and terror attacks are sadly not a new thing in the United States, but Shaw said when it hits your hometown it’s still a shock.
“Orlando, the signs say City Beauti- ful. It’s a big attraction (city) with Disney, you’ve got a lot of tourists and people from out of state coming in, and when it happens in your city and in that area it’s kind of weird,” Shaw said. “They chose downtown Orlando at a homosexual club. Cleary it was targeted. It makes it scary to think about.”
With his loved ones unharmed, Shaw has been trying to reimmerse himself in the bubble of training camp, which wraps up this week. The Argos travel to Montreal to face the Alouettes Friday in their final preseason game.
He spent most of last year on the team’s practice roster, getting in on just the Argos’ final two regular-season games, starting one. He’s in line for a bigger role with the Argos this season, his patience paying off for him.
“It’s tough but it’s also a learning process, that’s how I took it,” he said. “It was the same thing at Florida State. I had to wait, then you get the system down pat and then you can play up to your abilities.
“I took that and carried it over this year and now I’m playing ball with my boys.”