Nashville SC's GEODIS Park is loud. Roughly 30,000 fans cheer and chant for 90 minutes on MLS matchdays, creating a constant soundtrack that has become synonymous with the Music City since the soccer-specific venue opened 11 months ago.
However, it was the absence of noise that stood out Saturday evening. That's because the stadium remained silent for six minutes to honor the six lives tragically taken away in last week's shooting at The Covenant School.
Between the sixth and 12th minutes of a 0-0 draw between Nashville and Toronto FC, The Backline (Nashville's supporters' collective) led a stadium-wide period of silence to honor the three 9-year-olds and three staff members who lost their lives on March 27 when a shooter entered a school in Nashville's Green Hills neighborhood.
Twelve days later, with Nashville SC playing their first home match since the horrific tragedy, the supporters did their part to commemorate the lives lost. While the match played on, fans around the stadium held their phones aloft and the supporters' section unfurled two banners bearing a simple yet poignant message: "End gun violence" and "Ā”Ya Basta! Enough!"
"I think it's been an incredibly difficult week for an awful lot of people," Nashville head coach Gary Smith reflected after the match. "In saying that, I don't think any of us can even remotely understand what some of these families are going through that have lost loved ones.
"It's not just going to end," said Smith. "Their sadness and grieving is not going to end in the next couple of months where maybe some of us will have moved on and carried on with our lives. They're going to have to deal with that for a long, long time."
This is not the first time MLS markets have brushed shoulders with gun violence. Philadelphia Union midfielder Alejandro Bedoya, the 2022 MLS WORKS Humanitarian of the Year, memorably called on lawmakers to end gun violence on the field after scoring a goal in 2019, while players and teams around MLS spoke out last May after a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. But for Nashville, March 27 brutally brought the gun violence issue into the city, into the lives of a remarkably inter-connected community.
While Saturday's memorial may have lasted just six minutes, Nashville won't soon forget what happened at The Covenant School. US men's national team full Shaq Moore stressed as much post-game.
"We wanted to make sure that we remember them and honor them, and hopefully bring light to that situation," Moore said. "Hopefully we can do something about it so that it doesn't happen again."
