Cousin of TCU guard survived the Parkland school shooting. ‘It felt like forever’

Chris Gaynor played in a football game for the first time in 22 months when TCU faced SMU on Sept. 7 in Dallas. He came off the bench after redshirting in 2017, but it marked the first step toward him becoming a significant contributor for the Frogs this season.

It was a good night for Gaynor and TCU, a 42-12 victory. But that night carried much more significance for him.

More than 1,200 miles away, his high school alma mater won its home opener by 17 points. Gaynor’s cousin, Gage, is on the team and following in the footsteps of Chris and his brother, Corey, as a standout offensive lineman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

That victory meant so much for the Gaynor family and their hometown, which still is healing from the tragic school shooting that took 17 lives last Valentine’s Day.

“That 17-point victory was tremendous in the community because every time I go home now, it’s just not the same anymore,” Chris said. “It’s not the same place that I grew up with. But they’re growing as a community and finally accepting it happened.”

Said Gage: “That was our homecoming game and it was one of the happiest moments of my life, being able to ball out with your brothers and win homecoming by 17 points. We knew we had everybody on our side.”

Moving on from something of that magnitude has been easier said than done at times. Among the 17 victims was Aaron Feis, an assistant football coach who worked with the offensive line on a daily basis.

He taught the Gaynor trio – Chris, Corey and Gage – how to handle themselves on and off the field. His lessons carry more weight for them today than ever.

“He had a huge impact on me,” Chris said. “Coach Feis was there from my freshman year to senior year, coached my brother, coached my cousin, so ultimately he coached three generations of my family.”

Said Gage: “He was one of the first coaches I met. Whether it was techniques on the O-line or life values on or off the field, he would always be there for us and teach us how to persevere and push through. He really taught us how to keep fighting.”

The day

Gage prepared himself for a fight on Feb. 14, 2018. He happened to be in the same building – Building 12 – as the shooter.

“We were in class doing a project and started hearing pops,” Gage said. “We all started running behind desks.”

It didn’t take long for 17-year-old Gage – a 6-foot-3, 270-pounder – to head toward the classroom door and hunker down. He armed himself with a trophy he saw nearby and readied for an encounter.

“I’m not the type to sit back and let things happen,” Gage said. “I’d rather have a say in the matter.”

The shooter never reached the second-floor classroom where Gaynor had hunkered down. The shooter dropped his rifle after a six-minute attack and blended in with fleeing students.

Police eventually evacuated the room Gage and his classmates were in.

The first person Gage talked with when he was safe? Chris.

“We put our phones on silent and when we got out, I saw I had a bunch of missed calls,” Gage said. “Chris called right then and he was the first person I talked to afterward. He said, ‘Glad you’re safe. Keep me updated.’

“My whole family was pretty scared. They were just happy I made it out.”

It’s still a chilling and fresh memory for Gage. The six-minute shooting felt like an eternity.

“It felt like forever,” Gage said. “My heart has never raced that fast.”

The aftermath is just as difficult. Gage acknowledged he had a rough couple of weeks right after it, and the entire school and community were “really down.”

Life will never be the same, especially for the teenagers who lived through it.

“You always hear, ‘You never know when you’re going to go,’ but until something like this happens to you, it changes your whole perspective on life,” Gage said. “It’s just crazy, just being in the building with them.”

Chris is still coming to grips with it himself. His hometown, Parkland, Florida, is not a place where you’d think a school shooting would happen.

“It’s a wealthy area,” Chris said. “You would never think that something like that would happen in that area. There are all these million-dollar homes everywhere. It was just some sicko, man.”

Police arrested a former student later that day. Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old, confessed to the shootings.

Moving forward

Football has always served as an outlet for the Gaynor family.

It’s doing so now for all three linemen. Chris is moving his way up TCU’s depth chart at right guard; Corey is seeing action as a sophomore at Miami; and Gage is starring for Stoneman Douglas High as a junior who has already drawn interest from schools such as Louisville and Marshall.

“This whole family is competitive; you’ll never see a more competitive game than when we’re all involved,” Gage said. “We’re all trying to improve and to outplay each other. I want to be as nasty as Chris and Corey were – going full speed and dominating whoever is in front of you. They really got me into football and are the reason where I am today.

“A lot of people say its big shoes to fill. I just look at it as motivation.”

Gage came away impressed with how Chris and the Frogs’ O-line handled Ohio State last Saturday, and is excited to see how they handle Texas this week.

Right guard has been a question mark much of the season with Trey Elliott starting the first two games, and Austin Myers moving from left tackle to right guard to start against Ohio State.

The Frogs aren’t scared to rotate offensive linemen and did so against Ohio State. The most productive unit against the Buckeyes was Myers at left tackle and Gaynor at right guard (along with center Kellton Hollins, left guard Cordel Iwuagwu and right tackle Lucas Niang).

That’s the O-line group who paved the way for Darius Anderson’s record-breaking 93-yard touchdown run in the second quarter.

“It was awesome,” said Chris, who came to TCU as a JUCO transfer out of Dodge City [Kansas] Community College in 2016.

“The second I saw Darius break the first tackle, I ran the full 100 yards all the way down. I don’t know if that was a mistake … got pretty tired.”

All joking aside, Gaynor and the TCU offensive line continue to serve as an early season surprise. This is a team that saw four of its main contributors from last season land in NFL camps this fall.

Only Iwuagwu and Niang had started for TCU going into the season.

“Many people thought that the O-line was going to be the weak link of our team,” Chris said. “But we didn’t want to be an audition for nobody’s defense. We play with a chip on our shoulder every week and just continue to get better.”

That’s a mindset that has been instilled in Gaynor since his early days of football. Aaron Feis, a man viewed as a hero for helping students till the end, left a lasting impact on his players.

Even in death, he’s teaching them how to fight and persevere.

This story was originally published September 20, 2018 at 10:00 AM.