'There's just no words': Linden football honors late teammate with emotional win

LINDEN – It was a beautiful first autumn Saturday, just perfect for a football game. Blue sky, not too hot, not too cold – perfect.

Then you noticed the American flag at half-staff next to the field house and a makeshift memorial a couple first downs away from the entrance against a fence.

Roses, candles, pictures of a smiling teenager, balloons dangling in the wind, one carrying the words “We miss you.” A blue No. 16 stood at the base, embedded in the grass. Passersby paused to quietly take it in, lowering their heads.

Linden sophomore Xavier McClain died Wednesday night following an apparent head injury that he sustained in a game Sept 9. He wore No. 16 and was 16 years old.

How could something like that happen?

“There’s just no words,” Linden head coach Al Chiola said following his team’s 13-0 win over Perth Amboy. “There’s no words to say to the team, to anybody. There’s no words. I don’t have any words. I come home, I see my children, I hug them a little longer. I hug these guys a little longer. I hug our coaches longer.

“It’s tough and we talked all week just about trying to fight through this and play the game right. The right way. Play hard the way Xavier would have wanted us to and that’s what we tried to do. That’s the only way we can honor him right now.”

Outpouring of condolences

It’s like everybody needed a group hug. The McClains, mom Lisa and dad Norman, and the Linden Tigers have received condolences and best wishes from rival teams to touched parents everywhere to New York Jets coach Robert Saleh.

“The outpouring of support has been great for our program and these kids because they need it,” Chiola said.

Linden Mayor Derek Armstead and his wife Danie are friends with the McClains, and their children played youth sports with Xavier.

“The Linden community, the football community – we rally behind the family because of these events,” Armstead said in the first quarter of Saturday’s game. “It’s just what we do when things like this happen. You know, I have to say, sometimes when things are at the absolute worst, we as human beings can be at our absolute best. And that’s the way it should be. … It’s just been a total outpouring and showing of love and support for the family.”

It’s still hard to comprehend the tragedy and then balance it with the normalcy of everyday life. Saturday had a strange dichotomy. After a subdued moment of silence, the game and fanfare went on as any other game.

Spectators filled the bleachers. Cheerleaders chanted. The soft serve ice cream truck across the street had a long line at halftime.

Players still relished in making big tackles. There was even an unnerving injury timeout, in which a Perth Amboy player laid on his back for several moments before getting up. Chiola walked over and looked on, gently placing his hand on a shoulder, letting him know, in essence, all of Linden was there for him.

Chiola’s a near-lifelong football guy and his sons play at Colonia High School, so he’s aware of the risks and rewards. With injuries, Chiola said, you simply hope the player gets up. Still, to have someone pass away?

'You never think something like that is going to happen'

It’s rare. In 2021, the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research reported there were “four traumatic injury (direct) fatalities that occurred among football players during football-related activities” in its annual survey of football injury research. Additionally, all four were in high school football and had traumatic brain injuries.

“We have kids at home that play football and we all know it’s a violent sport, but you never think something like that is going to happen,” Chiola said. “You just don’t. It’s terrible.”

He added, “You just feel, it’s different. Everything’s a little different now.”

One is too many.

“It just changes you a little bit,” Chiola said. “You look at every play, every hit a little differently now. One thing I can say about Xavier, we talked about it in the locker room before the game, when he was on the football field that’s the happiest that we see him. He’s always smiling, and he loved the game of football. He did.”

Again, how do you reconcile playing a game you love and a tragedy that comes with it?

“It’s like unimaginable that you could lose a young man out here on the football field in your hometown,” Armstead said, “and quite honestly, as much as I love football, I’ll never look at the game the same ever again after losing one of our own out here.

“I think every time I go to turn on the TV and see a team playing, I’ll probably be thinking about this young man. Probably for the rest of my life.”

Armstead added, “Not for nothing, there are a number of children here who are adversely affected by this because Xavier was friends to a lot of children. It hurts. It hurts them probably as bad as some of the parents. It’s a tough thing. It really is.”

Life and the games must go on, though, and Chiola said getting back to the football routine was important for the grieving linebackers and linemen.

“Obviously, all week they had grief counselors for the students, for the players, for the teachers,” he said, “but sometimes you just need to get back to a little bit of their routine, just for an hour or so – obviously not forget about it – but just play football for that hour and then go back home and spend some time with their family and heal emotionally.”

He noted the team wanted to play against Perth Amboy and the coaches had talks with administrators if the game should happen. The concern was if the players would be mentally ready for football.

The game was pushed back from Friday to Saturday for an extra day to help focus in. The school administration requested that reporters not speak with the players. Chiola was gracious in talking about what the team has gone through the last few days.

“It was extremely difficult,” he said, wearing a visor with a No. 16 decal. “We took a day off to kind of heal together as a team and just kind of sit together and had a nice team dinner. And that was important. I think that helped. We tried to bring a little bit of that structure and normalcy back to our kids. We just kept saying get ready for football, let’s focus on the game, focus on your technique, your job. Did as best as expected.”

Linden scored twice in the first half with touchdown runs from Alex Donic and Tequan Thomas. Perth Amboy rallied in the second half, but Obinma Rogers intercepted a pass at the goal line to preserve the shutout.

Honoring Xavier

When it was over, senior Tyell Williams carried a white No. 16 jersey and walked over to Thomas, and they brought it along the handshake line with the Perth Amboy players.

Chiola, his voice cracking, told the team in a semicircle the coaches were proud of them and that the best way they can honor Xavier is to play hard and play the right way.

And at the end, there were hugs between players and family members.

“It’s really hard,” Danie Orelien-Armstead, the mayor’s wife, said earlier in the day with tears. “It really is. It’s unfortunate it takes these tragedies for us to come together and when I found out about the news that he passed, the first thing I did, I called all my children and I hugged them. Held them tight and I said I love you.

“I hugged them really, really tight and I said I love you. I love you because you’re not promised tomorrow, you know. I’m fortunate that they’re still here and someone else is going to be burying their kid. It’s not fair. It’s just like not right. It hurts. It really does.”

It’s a good reminder to not take the normalcy and those blue skies for granted.

“Life is unpredictable,” Danie said. “You never know, that’s why I tell every parent you go home every night, hug your children. Say I love you. Put everything aside, whatever it is because you never know. I tell them every day I love them.”

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Linden NJ High School football wins days after player's death