The coaches and the team weren't sure if we should cancel the rest of the season or not. Some of the guys wanted to play right away to take their minds off of everything while other guys didn't want to play on the field where they saw their friend and teammate die. We were all emotionally drained and uncertain about the future. We were scheduled to begin our spring break and travel to the University of North Carolina (UNC) to play them, but we decided to cancel the game. No one was prepared to play. We asked the players if they wanted to go home and spend spring break with their families or stay together, and everyone agreed that they wanted to do something as a team. So, we decided to travel to North Carolina anyway and spend some time there. We watched UNC play Duke at night. We went to the movies and played flag football, but we didn't play lacrosse. It was time to simply be together and get away from everything.

Then we traveled to Washington, DC, for George's funeral. I can still hear the song “On Eagle's Wings” playing. George's older sister, Elena, gave a very emotional eulogy. She talked about spending her junior year in college in Florence, Italy, far from George, who was at Cornell. She said, “Many are afraid of the dark, but [my sister] Caroline and I have no fear because George was a great light. When George was near, you never saw your shadow…. One afternoon while in Florence, I walked through the rooms of the Bargello museum. I came upon a room that was filled with a great light; I was drawn into it. As I looked at the statues in the room, I came upon a niche and a statue of Saint George. I sat in front of it and wrote: ‘You are young and beautiful and delicate, reflecting only peace. You watch over others in the soft light of the room. The darkness is gone. You may rest now, Saint George.’”

The words she wrote on that day, several years before George's passing, spoke to all of our hearts about how we felt about George and the light that he brought to us. After the funeral, we traveled back to Ithaca for a memorial service where Mr. Boiardi spoke, and the last thing he said was, “I want to leave you with one thought: When a raindrop falls through still air toward a pool of water, it may momentarily catch the sunlight and refract a full spectrum of color. When the raindrop reaches the pool, it will disappear. But if the pool is perfectly calm, the energy transferred from that raindrop will continue in perfect concentric waves, spreading beyond our sight.”

After the memorial service, we met as a team in the Hall of Fame room and talked about whether we were going to continue the season. Mr. and Mrs. Boiardi told us that if George could have his way, we would play. He would have wanted us to play and never give up. They gave us their blessing and the strength to move forward. So, we decided to continue the season, but we decided we were not going to play to win for George. We would play to honor the man and teammate he was. That didn't mean winning at all costs. We were going to play the way he had played the game and honor him through our actions and spirit. From that moment on, everyone focused on being a great teammate—not on winning—and we all changed. We became the ultimate team: selfless, committed, united, hardworking, passionate, and relentless. Never before had I been part of a team like that. It was a defining moment for us and for our program. If someone slacked off, we would look at the hard hat, which we had painted with George's number, 21. His presence never left us. Guys said that because George had never taken a play off, they wouldn't either. It was all about playing hard, playing tough, and having the integrity to do things the right way all the time—not part of the time—and staying committed to each other and George's legacy.

The irony of it all was that during a tragedy of that magnitude, the one person most of the team would have sought help from was George, and while he wasn't here physically, they were able to look to him for strength in a different way. We had been a team that lacked heart and George gave us his.

If you had a son, you wanted him to be like George. Mrs. Boiardi now had 42 sons, all striving to be like him. That's when everything changed.