BOWLING GREEN — Coale Norris woke up early from a nap on Nov. 30 to nearly 25 missed calls and text messages from family, teammates, and friends.
He had learned quickly that disaster and horrifying events occurred at his high school alma mater.
When Bowling Green State University’s hockey team takes the ice Friday and Saturday against Ferris State, Norris, a senior forward, will be playing for a little more than just his team.
He will also have his hometown community on his mind.
Norris spent 14 years in Germany, but he holds a diploma from a high school in Michigan.
Oxford High School. The same high school where four students were killed and several others were wounded in a shooting by a 15-year old suspect on Nov. 30.
“For the first hour or so, I really didn’t talk to anyone in my family besides the attached [in a group text thread], and then that night I talked to my brothers and stuff, and the day after I talked a lot with my dad,” Norris said. “That day was just trying to figure out who the shooter was, what the pieces were, how could this happen, stuff like that.
“It was tough to talk about it, because you don’t really know what happened really that quick, or you don’t want to spread false information and stuff like that either. That was the way, how I found out. It was honestly really weird. I never wake up from my nap early or anything like that, and that day I woke up early for a reason.”
Norris’ family is friends with the family of Tate Myre, a football player at Oxford who was one of four killed that day. When Norris, a 2015 Oxford High School graduate, takes the ice this weekend, he will have the 16-year-old Myre, 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana, 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin, and 17-year-old Justin Shilling on his mind.
“Obviously, after it happened last weekend, we had an off weekend so we didn’t really play,” Norris said. “I think that’s how I’m going to play this weekend, just thinking about, it’s more than just a hockey game. Thinking about those people and definitely not in a negative way, but just as a motivation to make your hometown proud.”
Norris’ brother, Josh, is a forward for the NHL’s Ottawa Senators. Coale said Josh’s first game since the incident was played with Oxford High School in mind, as well. Josh Norris had an assist in Ottawa’s game against Vancouver on Dec. 1.
“Thinking of just what some of those kids went through, the parents of those kids,” Josh Norris told NHL.com. “It's really difficult. All I can do is send my thoughts and my love. I'm proud to be from there. It's such an unfortunate situation.”
Falcons head coach Ty Eigner said his coaching staff and the players have been there to support Norris through the tragic events at Oxford.
“As we talked through and talked about it, it’s just really sad,” Eigner said. “Any parent that has to go through the loss of a child, it’s awful, but to think you lost your child when they went to school, that’s hard to wrap your head around.”
Norris has love for his hometown, but he will also be contesting familiar foes at the Slater Family Ice Arena.
Norris spent four seasons playing at Ferris State, transferring to BGSU before this season. He was Ferris State’s leading point scorer with 17 (eight goals, nine assists) in 25 games last season.
He has 10 points (five goals, five assists) in 14 games for the 7-4-3 Falcons.
“Going to be some mixed emotions for sure,” Norris said. “It’s a place where I spent four years of my life, made friends and relationships with that coaching staff and stuff. I think it’s going to be a little bit emotional but, at the end of the day, I just got to try to go in there with the same mindset as every weekend. If you’re not in the orange and brown, then we’re going to play hard against you.”
He mentioned BGSU as a transfer destination not just for graduate studies — he wants to get a master’s degree in analytics — but also because Eigner and the rest of the coaching staff played a style of hockey that fit him. He said upwards of 17 schools reached out to him while he was in the transfer portal.
BGSU was the one he stuck with.
“When I was looking around and I was talking to guys from teams and getting recommendations, I was talking to guys that had been at Bowling Green,” Norris said. “I didn’t hear one bad thing from guys that were leaving or guys that were here. I didn’t hear a bad thing about Bowling Green, and that was one of the main reasons why I wanted to come here.”
First Published December 8, 2021, 11:25 p.m.
