Both Matt Lee and Desi Gonzalez were woken up by the tragedy.
Lee, former club head coach of Scott “Scotty” Michaud, was asleep in his house in Columbus, Ohio. Gonzalez, Noah Snyder’s head coach in high school, was in West Chester, Pa. Lee found out Saturday morning at around 7 a.m., Gonzalez, Friday at 10 p.m.
The two men don’t know each other, live hundreds of miles apart and found out at different times, but both were left in an emotional rollercoaster of disbelief, sadness, anger and everything in between upon learning their former players Noah and Scotty — two Marquette students on the men’s lacrosse team — were killed in a car crash.
First came the disbelief.
Lee, who coached Scotty in high school at the club team Resolute Lacrosse, heard his phone buzz.
He looked at it in a foggy, not-out-of-bed-yet haze and saw someone messaged him a news article about the crash. He read the couple-hundred-word story. By the time he was done, his phone was blowing up. Text messages came through by the dozen. Phone calls followed suit. Former players who knew Scotty, parents of families who knew the entire Michaud clan.
Is it really Scotty? Is it true?
Lee dug deep into the rabbit hole. Scoured every news source he could find. Eventually, he found a local TV story filmed the night before and saw the mangled cars in the background. More questions seeped into his mind.
Who hit who? When exactly did this happen?
Lee’s phone kept vibrating as the minutes passed. Faster and faster, more and more.
“I didn’t know what to really do, besides take all the calls and text messages,” he said.
Gonzalez, now awake after two missed calls from his brother, Luis Gonzalez, who also coached Noah, was in a similar situation. His phone is normally on do not disturb, but it rings when Luis calls.
He saw he had over 30 missed texts and calls, mainly from people who played with Noah at Westtown School in West Chester under the Gonzalez brothers.
This has to be a mistake. It’s not actually Noah.
It had to be someone else, he thought.
“You never really want to get that call,” Gonzalez said.
Second was the sadness.
Gonzalez didn’t sleep Friday night. He hung up with his brother and tossed and turned for hours.
Most of Saturday was spent dealing with his own feelings, not yet in a place to talk about everything that transpired in the past 24 hours. Eventually, after enough time, Gonzalez picked up the phone again. He talked to former players, current players, coaches. He gave them an open ear and an outlet for their emotions.
“Because a lot of these kids have never lost somebody that close,” he said.
The entire Westtown community was, and still is, reeling. Noah was more than a lacrosse player. He was an active member of the local Native American community, along with his reservation in upstate New York. He had a contagious, room-lighting smile. He was a goofball when appropriate, serious when needed. He dreamed to play professional lacrosse for the Buffalo Bandits, his hometown team.
“If it was a lacrosse player, it’d be a smaller community,” Gonzalez said. “But that kid was everywhere, anywhere.”
All of these thoughts and more were flooding through his head as he scrolled through pictures and videos in posts and messages.
“Everybody knew when he was having fun,” Gonzalez said. “Everybody else around him was, too.”
Lee spent his weekend on the phone, like Gonzalez, with everybody he could think of. He had former players calling him in droves, and he was there to let everyone express their emotions.
He remembers Scotty for his dedication.
Scotty lived in Springboro, Ohio, near Cincinnati. Resolute was in Columbus, about one hour, 15 minutes away with no traffic. Scotty made the trek, on average, three times a week, for lacrosse. Lee would see his smile and know that he was having a good day. Then he’d go home, ready to do it again a few days later.
Scotty played for a team called Resolute, and Lee likes to say he was the embodiment of the word, and any adjective one could conjure up.
“He personified that,” Lee said, “the definition of our program.”
Finally, the anger.
Now, Noah can’t play for the Haudenosaunee Nationals lacrosse team. Scotty can’t be Mr. Resolute, the personification of his former club.
Gonzalez learned the crash was caused by an alleged drunk driver on Sunday afternoon. Lee found out Monday. Their reactions, a mix of ire and disgust, nearly identical.
“It’s not fair,” Gonzalez said. “The kid wasn’t doing anything wrong. He was a good kid. He didn’t deserve that.”
A 41-year-old woman was arrested for homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle at the scene of the crash. Charges were referred to the Milwaukee District Attorney. As of Monday night, the case is under review.
“Hopefully there’s some justice there,” Lee said.
But right now, all people can do is remember them. Noah for his infectious smile and Scotty for his unwavering devotion.
For the reasons people loved them most.
This article was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at jack.albright@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.