Nothing has been normal recently for Matt Van Praag’s Evergreen High School football team.
The group and Evergreen’s flag football team have been displaced since the Sept. 10 shooting at the school that left two classmates critically wounded.
The football team’s game last week against George Washington was called off and will not be made up.
On Tuesday, though, Van Praag said he saw his team find a bit of that normalcy they’ve been looking for.
It just so happened to be at the Broncos’ practice facility.
The Evergreen High football and flag football teams traveled down to Dove Valley to practice at Denver’s indoor practice facility and then afterward heard from general manager George Paton and other members of the organization.
“We practiced two days last week at Chatfield, and so on that Tuesday, when we went to the Broncos facility, it was the first time we really had a real practice where the kids were really engaged and it felt like they were having fun,” Van Praag told The Post on Sunday. “It changed the entire perspective. The other two days were a little slower; the kids weren’t really focused, it was hard for them to focus and kind of get back into the swing of things.
“Being in the facility really just got the kids really excited. From the first warmup and getting dressed in the locker room all the way through the end of practice, it was really the first normal feeling — except for the location — for our team since the incident.”
Evergreen’s offensive line coach is longtime Tampa Bay center Ryan Jensen. In the aftermath of the shooting, Jensen reached out to the Broncos about a potential visit. Turns out, the team also needed a place to practice.
Soon, a plan came together.
Evergreen High remains closed, though a phased reopening begins this week with staff back in the building Monday and, eventually, students beginning a partial return to school Thursday and Friday.
“Our kids have been really resilient,” Van Praag said. “We’ve been together nearly every day since the incident — people within the program opening their homes to host the team — so we’ve spent from that Wednesday until really Thursday, we’ve spent just about every day together. It’s been wonderful. Every kid has opted in; nobody’s opted out. …
“They recognize that something terrible has taken place, but they don’t want that to define them. They’re getting out to work and they’re working hard and preparing for our first game this week.”
Evergreen’s junior varsity played Thursday against Golden, and now the varsity will return to play Friday at Severance.
“Honestly, they’re just excited to get out and play,” Van Praag said. “They can’t get back into their school, they can’t practice on their own field. All of those things are impacting them, and they just keep saying over and over again, ‘We want this to feel normal again. We want to get back to normal.’”
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