JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. — Trust is as integral to Columbine High School's football team as running drills or practicing passes.
Because trust in self, family and friends is what has propelled the community to overcome difficult times, both before and after April 20, 1999.
"You just wake up, and all of a sudden, you're older," Columbine head football coach Andy Lowry said on a sunny Thursday afternoon at the school's field. "When you start thinking 25 years — oh, my goodness, that came on us pretty fast."
But it doesn't surpass Lowry's career at Columbine. The 2023 season marked his 30th at the school. The field house is part of his home. The kids are part of his family. The assistant coaches are like brothers.
Along with his family and faith, football has molded him into who he is today.
“There's times where it's an escape," he said of the school's football field. "Football is a hard sport, our kids have to work hard... It parallels life, because life can be awful hard."
As it was on that fateful April day. This Saturday marks two and a half decades since tragedy struck the Jefferson County high school, stealing the lives of 12 students and a teacher.
When people ask how Columbine High School made it past that day, assistant football coach and social studies teacher Tom Tonelli, who was also teaching in 1999, has a simple answer.
"It survived because of the kids," he explained. “They were the source of strength for each other and for the faculty. I think that's one thing that people might miss, is that our kids are just incredibly resilient and loyal, and caring and dedicated to each other. It's just a special thing to witness. I can't imagine being anywhere else."
Lowry remembers April 20, 1999 began as a beautiful, sunny day. He brought his physical education classes outside to play flag football. He loved work — still does — and it seemed like another day to work alongside his best friends as they taught their classes. He grew up playing sports and as a coach, his day job was a long-held dream.
In one word, he called the rest of the day "horrific." By the end of that afternoon, the community had lost one teacher and 12 students, including one player on the football team — sophomore Matt Kechter. Number 70. That spring, Kechter had high hopes to land a spot as a starting lineman the following fall. He died in the school's library.
Lowry described the 16-year-old as a kind, gentle and smart young man who would do anything to help anybody. Much of the team was close with him.
“Matt was a special person with high morals and high values and just how he treated people," Lowry said. "All those kids all have those types of stories."
“I think it’s important for people to understand it was a tragic day," he continued. "Why those two did what they did, we will never know. It kind of died with them. But (there are) amazing stories that came from tragedy."
Many people wanted to tear down the school and move it somewhere else.
"And we wouldn't let that happen. Those two guys took enough from us," he said. "They weren't going to take our home.”
The 1999 football 5A state championship came amid a whirlwind of emotions. Media had followed the aftermath of April 20 closely, and that included the preparation for that fall's football season, which the team dedicated to Kechter.
“For our football guys that year in 1999, those guys were hurting emotionally and they were hurting deep down — pain that young people shouldn't have to go through," Lowry said. "But when they came up to football (practice), they were kids and they got to come up here and laugh and work and sweat and do all the things that you do and (that) athletics teaches. All the hard work and the lessons and the trusting and the camaraderie, the teamwork: 'It's not about me, it's about us.'”
The team stepped up each night under the lights, securing win after win. On top of their heavy hearts, they honored those lost through hard work, often practicing well after the sun dipped behind the Front Range. But the boys trusted each other and trusted the coaches, Lowry remembered.
In early December 1999, they found themselves, for the first time, at the state championship. They were up against Cherry Creek High School, which had several championships under its belt already. The number 70 was emblazoned on the Columbine players' helmets in honor of Kechter. Snow from the previous day covered the ground.
Off the bat, they fell down 14 to 0, Lowry said. His heart dropped a bit. But then things started to change.
“Our kids just fought. That’s what they had to do since April 20. They fought," he recalled.
At the final whistle, the scoreboard's glowing numbers read 21-14. Columbine had won.
"And afterwards, it was so many tears," Lowry said. "Tears of joy, but tears of just pure exhaustion. Our guys were just... and all of us were just zapped, just emotionally with it.”
It marked the first state championship Columbine had clinched. The Kechters were welcomed into the boys locker room and hoisted the trophy, Lowry said. It was an incredible evening, but it wouldn't bring 13 people back, he remembered thinking.
“To this day, kind of wish we would have been able to celebrate more. But we had such heavy hearts," he said. "Felt some guilt, to be honest with you. How can we feel so great when we still have loved ones that we lost?... Those guys on that football team, they're my heroes. They're my inspiration — what they were able to do.”
He was named Colorado's coach of the year. That 1999 team was inducted into the CHSAA Hall of Fame in 2018.
“So after the tragedy, and just what that group of kids did was just amazing," Lowry said. "Still can't really wrap my head around it. Then all of a sudden, 25 years later, we just won the state championship.”
He and the assistant coaches led the boys to their sixth state championship win in December 2023, just months before the 25-year mark of the tragedy.
The Rebels scored three touchdowns to win 28-14 over the top-seeded and previously undefeated Cherry Creek High School.
Columbine had been the No. 2 seed and finished the season undefeated.
“It feels extremely good to end a possible 5-peat,” Columbine senior Josh Snyder told CHSAA. “The biggest and best part of winning is doing it with all these brothers.”
It's a mindset the 1999 team held and the 2023 one mirrored, despite the fact that every player on the latter was born several years after the 1999 tragedy.
"It is a great coincidence, isn't it? Twenty-five years — it's pretty, pretty awesome," Lowry said. “It was just a special year... There were no tears of sorrow, that's for sure.”
Finding success in sports is a lot like success in relationships or a career, Lowry explained. You have to stay the course, dedicate ample time and keep a staunch work effort.
"It builds that discipline piece of things, that commitment, the trusting," he said. "You have to trust the person next to you. You have to trust the adults that are trying to lead you."
And that comes with time. But the trust leads to a team mentality, with personal egos left at the door.
"If you want to be a great team, it's not about me, it's about us," Lowry said. "It’s about each other and it’s about sacrificing. And the selfishness piece of all of us — to be able to release that for the sake of the team.”
Having that approach on the field has helped shape how boys have tackled life's trials.
"When tragedy strikes, to overcome it, you have to bond together," Lowry said. “...Tragedy is going to strike us all. I mean, we're not built for this forever, and we're gonna lose a loved one. And that foundation is like, what are you going to do when that happens?"
Lowry quoted Patrick Ireland, a student who survived multiple gunshot wounds that day in 1999: “'I can either be the victim or the victor. I choose to be the victor' — I think we all need that message."
The community at Columbine High School came out the other side as the victor because they put in that work and commitment, Lowry said. But also love.
“(Columbine's) legacy is about what we overcame," he said.
Columbine's football team is now deep in spring conditioning, lifting weights and sweating through sprints and drills. Lowry, who will enter his 31st year as a coach at the school this fall, will lead the first formal practice of the 2024 season in August.
"I don't ever remember regretting a day at work in my life. You know, coming here," he said. "I could probably retire at this point. But I don't know what else I would do. And I still enjoy it. I couldn't imagine doing anything different... God has put me in this situation. This has become a vocation more than a job."
He often pointed to his gratitude for the assistant coaches and their work with the team, but also all that happened in the wake of April 1999.
"When everything happened, we knew the only way we were going to make it through it was with the help of God, and if all of us banded together, and so I still see that," Tonelli said. "What's interesting is that 25 years later, I still see that same attitude from our kids. They just love one another, are proud of one another more than they are themselves."
That has translated to a legacy that is amid a transformation.
"It would be ridiculous to think that what happened on April 20 is not going to be part of our legacy," Tonelli said. "That's just not going to happen. That's always going to be part of our legacy. But I think so many kids have made a concerted effort to change that legacy, but they've done it with the people in front of them. I don't think the objective has ever been to go out and let the world know how great we really are. It's been: Let's take care of each other. Let's love each other. And through that, hopefully, the legacy changes."
Much of this is because of how Columbine students through the years have shown pride for their home.
"It's a pride in one another. It's a dedication to friendships," Tonelli explained. "That's one of the really incredible things about our community is that kids are so willing to deflect praise to themselves and give it to others — to deflect praise from individuals and give it to the whole, to the collective group."
Columbine was a special community before 1999, but the tragedy that year only entrenched that, he said.
"It's an incredible place, a beautiful place, a special place where something really awful happened," Tonelli continued. "There's no way they could not be shaped by what happened. And I don't think the kids today are unaffected by what happened. But the great thing about it is they've taken what has happened, and they let it affect them in a way where they're going to go out and make the world a better place. And they're gonna start doing it one person at a time."
