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EMU Wins Two For Bluffton
by Heather Bowser, Daily News-Record
In the truest sense, Eastern Mennonite University and its Ohio-based sister school, Bluffton University, are like family.
Folks at these two Mennonite-affiliated schools know the same people, tell the same jokes, sing the same hymns and preach the same doctrine. Although 460 miles apart, many of these Mennonites have lived in both Bluffton and Harrisonburg because the two schools regularly swap professors, administrators and faculty.
Unfortunately, EMU officials and coaches say, it was tragedy not tranquility that recently strengthened the friendship of the companion schools.
On Friday, a Bluffton charter bus full of baseball players plunged off an interstate ramp in Atlanta. The crash killed six people — including four players — and injured 29, according to police reports.
But it was the crash, officials say, that warmed the friendship and brought the schools closer together.
"We have this shared experience that we will never forget," EMU President Loren Swartzendruber said in a phone call Monday from Sarasota, Fla. "Although painful, this will provide a bond that we'll remember forever."
The Nightmare
Their story begins several months ago when the two baseball coaches decided to meet in Sarasota for a spring-break game. The game, says EMU coach Mark Mace, was intended to bring the two teams together because they had not played each other for four years.
With that, the players loaded onto their respective buses late last week and headed off toward the Sunshine State.
But then the sunset.
Before dawn on Friday, Bluffton's bus driver, Jerome Niemeyer, apparently mistook an exit ramp for a regular lane, and the bus crashed into a barrier and plummeted off the overpass onto the highway below, reports say.
Meanwhile, EMU's bus continued toward Sarasota until suddenly, everyone's cell phones screeched to life. Tragedy called.
EMU To The Rescue
Back at the scene, rescue workers pulled the players and coaches out of the bus as it lay on its side across Interstate 75, reports said. Police collected baseball bats, gloves and balls, which were scattered all across the roadway.
As the 29 injured players recovered at local hospitals, a local pastor - who was also a former Eastern Mennonite Seminary student - visited and prayed with the players. The pastor, Johnny Crist was the first member of the clergy that hospital security allowed to visit the players.
"The players were just stunned," Crist said. "I acted as a sort of a dad, or pastor for them. I told them, 'We're going to get through this.'"
Later, Crist escorted the parents of the dead players to the crash site and then to the local funeral home to view their sons' bodies.
Back in Harrisonburg, the rest of the EMU community had already sprung into action.
EMU campus pastors faxed church materials for Bluffton officials to use in Sarasota. University officials dedicated part of the regular chapel service to remembering the victims of the crash.
The school also set up a prayer station in the Campus Center Greeting Hall to post updates about Bluffton's team members.
Swartzendruber flew to Sarasota, speaking to a local Mennonite congregation on Sunday, where EMU's baseball team and some Bluffton baseball parents were in attendance.
Royals To The Rescue
And then the EMU Royals stepped up to the plate.
On Monday, the Bluffton team was scheduled to play a doubleheader against Ohio-based Hiram College. But, by then, the broken team had already returned to its Ohio campus.
Instead, the Royals played the two games on Bluffton's behalf. EMU’s team members wrote "Bluffton" on the left side of their caps, which they will wear for the rest of the season, said EMU team captains.
"It could have been us, it could have been our bus," said Brandon Zollman, 22, of Lexington, on a cell phone from the stadium. "I guess it opens your eyes that anything could happen."
Jameson Jarvis, 22, of Culpeper agreed.
"We live the same lives they do," Jarvis said. "Every day we both study, go to class and play baseball. We're the same."
Later that day, EMU won both games for its Bluffton brethren.
After all, that’s what family is for.
