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In his words: Evansville AD tells how tragedy turned to hope

Earlier this summer, University of Evansville Director of Athletics John Stanley received the news that every AD dreads – the death of a student-athlete. In this case, however, the news was wrong.

On July 18, officials in Arizona reported that 19-year-old Abby Guerra, a starter for the Lady Aces soccer team, had been killed in an automobile accident while en route home to Arizona from a trip to Disneyland with four friends. A week later, however, officials acknowledged that Guerra did not die in the accident. In a case of mistaken identity, the Evansville community learned that a young woman lying in a hospital bed in Arizona was in fact Guerra and the girl identified as having been hospitalized was deceased.

Here is Stanley’s account of what he and Guerra’s family, teammates, coaches and friends experienced during those agonizing days.

 

We all know there is a possibility that one day a call will come that one of our student-athletes has been seriously injured or has died. 

Even so, I can tell you when I got the word that our soccer player, Abby Guerra, had been killed in a traffic accident over summer break, it was very much a struggle of emotions as we told her teammates and prepared for them to travel to her funeral.

Absolutely nothing could have prepared us for the jolting news a week later as the team was about to head to the scheduled funeral that Abby wasn’t dead after all. Instead, there had been a case of misidentification. Abby was lying in critical condition in an Arizona hospital bed, and her childhood friend was in fact the victim at the coroner’s office.

We had to develop a plan, and do so quickly, that would address all of the upcoming issues, not the least of which was whether the team could and should still travel. We had to deal with national media attention while also considering the emotional turmoil resulting from the circumstances.

My initial response as athletics director was to gather a team of people inside and outside the athletics department that would allow us to determine and achieve the desired outcome. In our case, it was our senior woman administrator, our sports information director, the school’s director of university relations and our head coach.

Our unanimously agreed-upon priorities were to provide support for Abby and her family, to help our student-athletes and coaches handle the crisis, and to represent the university and community as the local and national media covered the story.

Our team was not on campus, but nearly all had flights to Abby’s planned funeral, which was to take place on Monday, July 26, less than two days after the new disclosures. We had to contact them and then decide if they would still go, since it was no longer a funeral. The clear and right answer was to send them to support Abby and the family. We contacted the players as quickly as possible with the news about their critically ill teammate. (We used Facebook to do this, which proved to be more efficient than phone calls).

The team gathered at the hospital from many home locations. We also sent the entire coaching staff and our SWA to oversee all of the logistics and provide emotional support and direction/assistance for the coaches and players.

I stayed on campus to handle the media releases and requests. Our university relations and sports information staffs coordinated the many media requests that resulted due to the nearly unique circumstances of the tragedy. Calls came from all of the major networks and many other media outlets, from CNN to ESPN along with the Associated Press and local papers.

We feel like we accommodated all requests and did appreciate the interest and sensitivity that the media showed to us. All the while we kept our focus on the main issue, which was supporting Abby’s family, our student-athletes, and the university and community.

While Abby remains hospitalized, she continues her remarkable quest for a full recovery. Updates are posted on a special website developed to tell her story.

Since the time our players returned, there has been support from our counselors, ministers and many others who have sent cards or offered to help in many ways. Our coaches struggle with the critical injury to a young woman they have known so well, but they are doing an outstanding job of leading the team to a sense of normalcy while not losing sight of daily thoughts for Abby. The community and many others have been highly respectful and supportive of our university and the team, as well as of Abby. That has all been very gratifying.

The one thing I can tell you is that you cannot prepare for the emotional swings that you will have as an athletics director. While you will have the responsibility to be the face of the athletics program and respond as a leader should (and it isn’t easy to answer media questions and issue prepared releases while having inner grief), there will be the quiet moments of reflection about the injury or loss of a young person who has chosen your school and has gotten to know the family of teammates, coaches, other student-athletes and the student body in general. It will be very sad, and there hasn’t been a day that has passed where I (and many others here) do not think of Abby and the tragedy and hope for the best.

If I might offer any advice of dealing with a tragedy of a serious injury or death of a student-athlete, it might be this:

• Identify a team you can count on to pinpoint issues and execute an efficient plan, and don’t limit that team to athletics department personnel. Our team was outstanding in that regard.
• Make sure you assess every decision to assure that it fits the objective that you set out to achieve (in our case, it was primarily to provide support of Abby and her teammates and coaches).
• Prepare for unexpected emotional rollercoasters personally and with others you will work with.

As I write this, practice has begun, and our young team with eight freshmen will be forever bonded. I watch as I know they will practice hard and want to do well for Abby, who remains in critical condition.

We hope daily that Abby progresses and that our student-athletes have a year with purpose regardless of the ultimate outcome in terms of won/lost record.

Wish the Aces well this year.