Dwyane Wade surprised Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students at graduation Sunday
More than a year after a mass shooting rocked a Miami-area high school, hundreds of students piled into an arena on Sunday to earn their diplomas.
Dwyane Wade was right there with them.
Wade made a surprise appearance on Sunday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s graduation ceremony, giving the honorary speech to the Class of 2019.
Seventeen students and teachers were killed in the mass shooting at the high school in February 2018, which sparked a massive movement about gun control in the United States. Wade — who retired from the league in April after 16 seasons, most of which he spent with the Miami Heat — has made multiple trips to the high school since the shooting and donated $200,000 to March for Our Lives, the group founded by survivors of the shooting now advocating for gun control.
One of the students who was killed, Joaquin Oliver, was even buried in Wade’s jersey — something that hit him hard.
Part of Wade’s speech at the ceremony on Sunday had to do with his first trip to the school after the massacre — a trip that was like nothing he had ever experienced.
@DouglasHigh truly MSD is #MSDSTRONG because Dwayne Wade came to their commencement pic.twitter.com/VW0IUvXIhy
— Safeer Bhatti, Ph.D. (@drsafeerbhatti) June 2, 2019
“I remember walking to the school, and I remember hearing absolutely nothing,” Wade said. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘I’ve never felt, I’ve never heard this kind of silence before in my life.’
“I remember being so nervous to see and meet everybody. What would I say? I grew up in the inner city of Chicago and I’ve experienced a lot of awful things. But I’ve never experienced anything to the magnitude that you guys have just experienced. ... What started going through my mind was how do I dare come in here and act like I know what you guys have been going through? How narcissistic of me to think I can come here and make a difference because I’m good at my sport.
“I remember walking slowly to the cafeteria. As I was walking in, students started seeing me, I remember seeing smiles, people running, pulling out their phones. ... I remember thinking, ‘Wow.’ It was packed. I didn’t expect that.”
Wade then closed out his speech on Sunday with the cheer he used to lead the Heat to their 2013 NBA Finals win.
“To the last man, to the last minute, to the last second, we fight, we fight, we fight!" he yelled, before adding, “MSD Strong,” according to ESPN.
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