A shooting in an elementary school in Nashville left six people dead, including three 9-year-old children.
Georgia Tech football coach Brent Key did not have a direct tie to the tragedy, but his mother was a school teacher, and the events hit home for anyone with children of their own.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Key vowed that his stance was “nothing political and nothing religious,” but he made an emotional plea for “everybody” to “do something.”
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Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets interim head coach Brent Key before the game against the University of Georgia Bulldogs on Nov. 26, 2022, at Sanford Stadium in Athens. (David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“I’m not gonna sit here and make any political statements or any religious statements, or anything about that. I will not do that. But something’s gotta change,” he said. “My mom was a third-grade school teacher her whole career, and I’ve got a 4-year-old daughter, about to be 5, who was doing a school play when that happened. The whole rest of the day, I’m messed up, my wife cried four or five times in the day, and that’s magnified by millions across the country and the world. There’s nothing political and nothing religious made about this, but something has to change.”
Key later added that he does not “care who tweets at me or says something” negative – he’d rather pay attention to those who agree with him.
Memorials for the six victims who were killed in a mass shooting are placed outside The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, on Tuesday, March 28, 2023. (KR/Mega for Fox News Digital)
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“And I had a chance to stand up here and be in front of a camera, and if one person hears me say that, and agrees, and does something to help force the change and something to happen and 1,000 other people say something negative about it, I don’t care – because it worked. And if this one thing I say can help somebody else say something and have the guts to stand up and say something, and maybe somebody the guts to stand up and do something, then maybe something will happen.
“As long as people stand up there and bicker and argue, more and more kids are gonna die. Because it hasn’t changed. So something’s gotta change. Everybody please, do something. Whoever listens to this, send it somewhere else, send it to somebody, I don’t know. Let’s all do something together to help.”
Key held it together for the majority of his answer, but it got to a point where he could not contain himself any longer.”
“It’s the most heartbreaking thing in the world to think about your daughter,” he continued before pausing to cry, “going to school, where she’s supposed to be safe and protected. It’s bulls—, man, it is.”
The Lutheran Church Charity’s K-9 Crisis Response Team comforts mourners outside The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee on Tuesday, March 28, 2023. (KR/Mega for Fox News Digital)
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Two Nashville police officers entered the school and went to the sounds of gunfire, where they fatally shot Audrey Hale around 10:27 a.m., according to police.
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