DALLAS -- De’Evan McFall once thought his days playing basketball were over before they ever really began.
It seemed to come out of nowhere, when late last year, his first season playing for Angelo Williams in the D-Town Magic Youth league, the 11-year-old called the coach himself, and said he wouldn’t be coming back. Money was tight; his mom just couldn’t afford it.
But Williams saw potential, and he couldn’t let it go.
He got De’Evan a sponsor, and no one had ever seen a kid more grateful for a second chance. He never missed a practice. In fact, De’Evan would arrive so early, he’d greet Williams before he could even park his truck. He treated every day in the gym like it was the most important game of his life, and his teammates believed that, in him, they’d found a leader.
Williams, who has been coaching for more than a decade, said he’s worked with players just like De’Evan in the past — eager, but a little rough around the edges — and he had big plans to take him under his wing, to build his confidence, and one day, he hoped, send him off to play college ball.
It was just going to take some time. Time De’Evan didn’t have.
On Jan. 15, De’Evan was fatally shot outside an apartment complex in the 3300 block of Southern Oaks Boulevard. Dallas police said two girls were fighting in the parking lot when one of them — a 14-year-old — fired a gun in the direction of the other. He was a bystander.
Less than a month into 2023, De’Evan is far from the only young person taken by gun violence in North Texas. On Jan. 4, a triple shooting in Fort Worth left two teenagers dead. On Jan. 16, a 16-year-old was found fatally shot in a central Oak Cliff creek. Four days later, a 17-year-old boy was killed near the Whataburger he worked at in Fort Worth, while trying to shield his cousin from gunfire.
So when Williams and his wife, Vanetra, considered what to tell De’Evan’s teammates as they gathered for their first practice without him, they decided to use the tragedy as a means toward awareness.
“We told them something had happened to their friend, something that could have been prevented, and that he wasn’t coming back,” Vanetra Williams said. “You’re as honest as you can be, because if not, how do we prevent this from happening again?”
Besides, she said, this isn’t the first loss they’ve faced.
‘Long live Mike Hickmon’
D-Town Magic Youth Basketball, which was founded in 2017, doesn’t hold tryouts, and Angelo Williams said that’s because “at D-Town, there’s a place for everyone.”
The coaches, usually family members of the players, are all volunteers. Like Michael Hickmon, another member of the organization taken by gunfire in the past year.
Hickmon died Aug. 13, when he was shot multiple times after a fight broke out during a youth football game between Dragon Elite Academy and North Dallas United in Lancaster. Hickmon was a member of DEA’s coaching staff, but Angelo Williams said he was also the typical “dad coach” for Magic Youth basketball, where his son, Mike Jr., has played for three seasons.
“It was so tough on everyone, and when his son was ready to come back and play, we really dedicated ourselves to lifting him up,” Angelo Williams said. “Losing De’Evan has definitely brought some of those feelings back.”
“#LLMH” — for “Long Live Mike Hickmon” — was put on the back of every jersey, and Angelo Williams said it was to serve as a “constant reminder of why we’re doing this: to build community.”
Hickmon’s brother, Robert Williams, who has since taken the lead on keeping Mike Jr. involved in the program, told The News their efforts “meant everything to both of us.”
“Being a part of an organization like this, it gives these kids something to be a part of, instead of just sitting alone in their grief,” he said. “They’re building character, they’re getting structure, they’re not isolating — that means something.”
‘Keep this from happening again’
On Jan. 19, the Williamses hosted a balloon release for De’Evan in the parking lot of Trinity Basin Preparatory’s Ledbetter campus, where practice was set to start later that night.
The crowd of nearly 50 people lit candles, took photos and shared memories of De’Evan as they waited for his mom, Vashunte Settles. She was running late, coming straight from the funeral home.
In the days after De’Evan was killed, Settles felt a responsibility to be outspoken. The morning after his death — tears streaming down her face, struggling to breathe — she pulled her phone out and recorded a video. Settles was at the apartment complex when De’Evan was shot, and explained witnessing gun violence inflicts its own kind of injury.
“I wish I could hear my baby talk again, to laugh, to see his face — not how I saw him before he left,” she said. “A piece of me left with him. I will never be the same.”
At a news conference that day, Settles pleaded with the community to “protect your babies.”
“I don’t want nobody else to have to feel like this,” she said. “I don’t. Protect your babies at all cost. You can’t get them back. I will never see my son again.”
But Settles was silent when she arrived at the vigil, merely observing the Williamses as they spoke about De’Evan to a TV station. It wasn’t until the group prayer began that the tears did, too.
“Heavenly Father, we just ask that you would help us have a word of prayer and encouragement to keep this from happening again,” Preston Malone II, a local high school teacher, said to the crowd. “We just ask that all of the families here would reach out to their loved ones and their children and make sure they know there is another alternative from looking at one that will take someone’s life.”
A cacophony of red, gold, black and basketball balloons filled the night sky. Children clung to one another as they cried, a sight Vanetra Williams called “heartbreaking, yet reaffirming.”
“We’re family on this team,” she said. “We win, we want to win, but that’s really not the point. If we’re not teaching these kids to be good to one another, if they’re not building a community they can count on, then we’re losing. I’m not in this to lose.”
As the rest of the parents consoled their children on the walk over to the gym, Settles went home.
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