This afternoon, the Bluffton University baseball team would have been suiting up and preparing to play their first game of the season in Sarasota, Florida. Unfortunately, that won't be happening after yesterday's tragic crash off I-75 in Atlanta. A bus carrying the baseball team from the small, close-knit, Mennonite-affiliated Ohio college careened over the side of an overpass and slammed onto the pavement 30 feet below. Four students were killed, in addition to the driver and his wife.
Overnight, profiles of the players emerged and we thought we'd share one. Outfielder and pitcher Tyler Williams was a sophomore and grew up in Lima, Ohio—a town that also lost another student, Scott Harmon, to the crash. Williams was a 2005 graduate of Lima High School and a three-year varsity letterman. The Cleveland Plain Dealer ran a short but poignant tribute, describing Tyler as having "charisma and a great smile", "always smiling and laughing" and as a young renaissance man. Tyler was athletic and creative—having won a local poetry contest and dabbled in art.
Tyler Williams' mom was raising him and his two sisters on her own. He also worked a part-time job to help pay for his education and "wanted to be one of the few in his family to get a college degree."
See The Cleveland Plain Dealer's profile: Tyler Williams
My good gracious. What a very sad thing to read and hear about. I'm sure both young men did their families proud. I was saddened to hear this news and to see the overturned bus carrying all the passengers.
ReplyDeleteLiving in Atlanta, there has been a constant reporting of how individuals, communities, and companies are coming together to aide the families affected by this tragedy. Rattler Nation - we need to keep them in out prayers.
ReplyDeleteWe are keeping them in our prayers.
ReplyDeleteI will certainly pray for all the student's families. Time is a precious thing.
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