Gil Gonzalez has an Angel on his jersey and an angel at his back.
“I got to hold his hand for the last time, just before they went to the hospital,” the Denver East senior said of his friend, the late Luis Garcia. He smiled wistfully.
“That’s when I held his hand for the last time. It’s really life-changing, what happened.”
Garcia, 16, who’d played soccer at East, was shot outside the school on Feb. 13. The teen would pass away from those wounds roughly two weeks later.
“Wouldn’t wish that on anybody,” said Gonzalez, whose East High Angels (24-2) meet Mountain Vista (24-2) on Friday in the Class 6A boys basketball Final 4 at Denver Coliseum. “And especially (given) the hurt their family’s feeling right now, his dad and mom. I wouldn’t want that for anybody.”
He misses the way Luis made him laugh. The way he made everybody laugh. There’s no “right” way to process senseless tragedy. While the East student body turned to pleas and protest, Gonzalez found peace in perspective. He vowed to savor everything in front of him even more. Loved ones. Classmates. The moment.
“That’s one thing I feel safe doing, is playing basketball,” said Gonzalez, who plays it superbly, a high-flyer with a 40-inch-plus vertical leap who averages 9.3 points and 6.3 rebounds. “That’s where I feel safe, and where I can get my mind off things.
“And I wish (Garcia) was here right now, but unfortunately, things happen. It’s been really hard. But sometimes, you’ve just got to push through, persevere.”
Whenever one of these Angel’s wings should fail them, they can count on the arms of another, always ready, always willing. Sure enough, when East star D’Aundre Samuels saw the loss of Garcia forming a cloud over Gonzalez’s head, he pulled him aside and opened up his soul.
He told Gil he knew exactly how he felt — Samuels only just found out that one of his boyhood friends from Fort Collins had been shot a few weeks earlier.
“I basically told him how the same thing had happened to me,” Samuels recalled. “But that’s why (the loss) pushes me and drives me to try and achieve my goals.”
Gonzalez took the words to a broken heart, even as the tiny fragments jangled inside his chest. Since Feb. 18, the senior wing’s averaging 12.5 points and 10.3 boards per game, putting the East frontcourt on his back and turning the unselfish Angels into one of the feel-good stories of prep basketball’s final weekend.
“I like to think of us as a bright light during these dark times,” longtime coach Rudy Carey said. “And we’ve been a bright light for decades. And it’s my philosophy that we will never allow this light to go out.
“Our kids feel (Garcia’s loss). But at the same time, our kids have to be the beacon of hope for the younger kids.”
Carey’s had better rosters. Bigger rosters. Faster rosters. This one might be his favorite.
The Angels have won 24 straight. Samuels and Gonzalez credit the chemistry; among the top 12 in the East rotation, bruising MJ Dailey is the only non-senior.
In hindsight, though, give an assist to a wise tweak Carey made after an 0-2 start and a humbling at the hands of Fossil Ridge back in December.
“I went home and internalized some stuff (after the Fossil Ridge game),” Carey explained, “and I thought, maybe I had kids in the wrong position.”
For Game 3, Samuels and Austin Mohr went from the backcourt to the front and Jack Greenwood went from the bench to the starting five, putting another shooter on the floor. East beat Poudre by 12 and hasn’t looked back since.
“Best coaching job I’ve ever seen him do,” assistant principal Shawne Anderson said as he watched practice late Tuesday afternoon. “They’re so much fun to watch.”
Gonzalez is having fun, too, a respite from reality and the pain. Before Friday’s matchup, he’ll write Garcia’s name on one of his shoes, same as during the Great 8. He’s got a red rubber bracelet around his left wrist with Luis’ name etched on one side and a plea to end gun violence on the other.
“We’ve always got to keep moving,” Gonzalez said. “Life goes on, no matter what. I just try to keep positive, dedicate things to him, because I know he would’ve wanted that.”
What else would Luis want from this weekend?
Another smile.
“He’d want us to win,” Gonzalez replied. “He went to a state championship in soccer. That’s my vote. He’d want us to be just like him.”
The light shines on. Brightly. A beacon of hope, illumining the way to a dream.
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