UNCASVILLE — Connecticut Sun center Olivia Nelson-Ododa describes her hometown Winder, Georgia as was the kind of place where people were comfortable leaving their front door unlocked. When she was growing up, the close-knit community with a population of less than 20,000 always felt like the safest place in the world.
That reality was rocked Wednesday morning by the news of a mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder that left four people dead and nine injured. A 14-year-old student has been charged with four counts of murder, accused of killing two students and two teachers with an AR-style weapon.
“I was just following the updates the whole day and calling them, checking in with them, checking in with my family,” Nelson-Ododa said. “For it to happen like this, especially just so randomly and in one of the safest places ever … you just never think this type of stuff happens, until it does.”
Nelson-Ododa graduated from Winder-Barrow High School, which is less than 10 miles across town from Apalachee. They are the only two high schools in Barrow County, so the communities share many ties. One of Nelson-Ododa’s cousins was a student at the school, and Apalachee’s principal is a friend of her family.
The first call Nelson-Ododa made when she learned about the shooting was to her high school basketball coach, who answered her FaceTime from a dark room: Neighboring schools had also been placed on precautionary lockdowns.
“She was barricaded in a room in the dark, freaked out, crying,” Nelson-Ododa said. “They’re in my heart. They’re in my prayers. I’m checking in with everybody daily as much as I can … I wish I could be home right now honestly, to be with the people that are affected, to be with my family, to be with my family friends, but the reality of it is I can’t, so I just want to try and do what I can from up here.”
The Sun are in the midst a critical stretch of the regular season before playoffs begin, and Nelson-Ododa said she has struggled with being so far away from home during a time of crisis. She used her outfit ahead of Connecticut’s game against the Las Vegas Aces on Friday to send a message, donning a tie-dyed orange shirt that read “wear orange,” a slogan from the WNBPA’s campaign against gun violence in partnership with gun safety advocacy organization Everytown. The team also held a moment of silence before tip-off in honor of the victims.
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“It’s hard, but at the end of the day this is my job. I think of the victims, and especially the kids, and they never will be able to grow up and really follow their dreams and do what they want to do, so I just keep that in my mind,” Nelson-Ododa said. “I’m definitely playing for them, playing for my community, and for literally, everybody affected by it … I think that’s what’s really holding me together right now, to be able to just allow me to lock in on something that I love out here too.”
Nelson-Ododa was vocal on social media in the hours after the shooting, calling for Georgia governor Brian Kemp to “FIX GEORGIA GUN LAWS” in a post to her Instagram Story on Wednesday. She also shared a graphic that crossed out the phrase “thoughts & prayers” and replaced it with “policy & change.” The former UConn standout wore a black t-shirt emblazoned with the word “VOTE” during her warmup before the Aces game, and she said she wants to see stronger gun control enacted in her home state. Everytown ranks Georgia’s gun laws as some as the weakest in the country, in part because it does not have any legislation requiring gun owners to safely secure firearms from children.
“We’re all allowed to have our Second Amendment rights, and I fully support that, but to be able to have assault weapons readily available for children, 14 year olds, it’s insane,” Nelson-Ododa said. “It shouldn’t be allowed to happen. Especially with these school shootings, the type of guns being used are precisely those, so there definitely needs to be some type of change, some type of legislation … It’s the same thing over and over and over, and we’re tired of it.”
