Zach Muckleroy and his family were the best of TCU and Fort Worth
One day this will still never make any sense.
The answers to the question will be yours, if you find one.
Terrible things happen to wonderful people, with no explanation. It remains a fundamental part of the human existence that is as real as the sun rise.
Because the sun will rise. What we do when it does is our choice.
On Friday afternoon, thousands of us joined the Muckleroy family at/near University Christian Church to mourn/celebrate the life of father/husband Zach and his two children, 12-year-old Judson and 9-year-old Lindsay.
The three were killed on Nov. 22 in a car accident in Blanco County. Zach’s wife and the children’s mother, Lauren Muckleroy, survived.
Having already had multiple surgeries for her injuries, Lauren attended the 90-minute service wearing a neck brace. The name “Lauren Muckleroy” deserves to be a synonym for strength.
The service, while painful, was the best of both Fort Worth and the entire TCU community.
The Muckleroy family loves every part of TCU, and, on Friday, it loved them all right back. In these moments, however, it just doesn’t feel like enough.
Because there is nothing that can be said. Because there really isn’t much that can be done. Because it all feels so inadequate. Because it is.
You just show up, and hope you don’t utter the wrong combinations of words. And when you say the wrong thing, you apologize, and just show up again.
Planners for this service originally offered the Muckleroy family the chance to have the memorial at the Schollmaier Arena, the 6,800 facility where TCU’s basketball teams play. The crowd for this memorial could have filled more than half of that arena.
The family preferred University Christian Church. This is their church. Has been for generations. Zach spent his Sundays here as a kid. So did Judson and Lindsay.
People showed up starting at 2 p.m., for a service that did not begin for another two hours. Most of these people would have waited for 12 hours.
Because when you want to do something and know you can’t do anything, two hours is two seconds.
Between the chapel and other seating areas around TCU’s campus, plus online viewers, a conservative estimate of those who watched and attended the service is about 4,300. Throughout the service there were tears, sniffles, and some laughter.
People like the Muckleroys are TCU, not the buildings, pretty flowers, the football stadium, or a sociology department.
Zach’s younger brother, David, noted in his sweet eulogy that Zach eagerly took up coaching his youth soccer team for his kids. And Zach knew nothing about soccer.
I spoke with Zach a few times, and the man could have talked to me for 24 straight hours about TCU football. Could not have been any nicer, even though he said he politely disagreed with me from time to time.
He knew everything about the team, current and past. He was a part of that past.
“I was just a walk-on,” he sheepishly said.
His father, Harold, was a TCU lettermen in 1971 and ‘72.
“Just a walk-on” on a Division I college team is more than most people who play football ever achieve. Zach happened to be a walk-on for the 1998 TCU team that upset USC in the Sun Bowl, a moment and memory that was mentioned during the service.
So was Zach and his family attending countless TCU football games over the years.
So was that Judson’s favorite football player was former TCU quarterback Andy Dalton. Zach scored tickets to a Bengals game on Dec. 29, 2019, in Cincinnati; it happened to be Dalton’s last game for the Bengals during their 2-14 season.
The Bengals actually won that day; Dalton met with the Muckleroy family after the game and told Judson, “Maybe you’re my good luck charm.”
The Muckleroys were all there together a little more than one year ago when TCU defeated Michigan in the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix.
This is a sweet family who has been dealt a tragedy that has generated international attention. How they’ve handled it all ... no clue how they’re doing it.
Everything about family, and community, Zach and his family did. Probably wasn’t perfect, because nothing is, but the effort and intention damn sure was.
That’s all any of us can do.
Their family does not end, but it is forever changed.
And none of this will ever make sense; the only part that does is that Zach Muckleroy and his family are the best of TCU, and Fort Worth.
