FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ They crammed into his bedroom and shared stories about the 15-year-old, but their laughter was forced. The teenage boys were hurting. Badly.
In just one month, members of the Deerfield Beach High School football team lost two players.
Bryce Gowdy was first, a suicide on Dec. 30, when he stepped in front of a train. Then Terrance Jackson died after being shot when a fight erupted after his grandfather's funeral Feb. 1.
The following day, coach Javon Glenn brought some 30 members of the football team to Jackson's Greenacres home, where they crammed into his bedroom to tell stories and console one another.
Football _ the shear energy, time and commitment they put into the sport _ was supposed to insulate these teams from the troubles of the world. But it didn't.
The deaths were crushing blows to this football family. That was so apparent inside the slain player's bedroom, Jackson's father said.
"They were devastated," Terrance Jackson Sr. said.
The emotions of the teens roiling inside his son's room were too much for Jackson's dad. He stepped outside.
"The devil is really working," Coral Glades head coach Cameron Thomas, who spent nine years with the Deerfield Beach High School football program, posted on Twitter after Jackson's death. "I'm asking everyone to please keep Deerfield Beach High lifted up in prayer."
Glenn, the Deerfield team's head coach, said he was too troubled by the deaths to speak at this time.
Player Jordan Jeuday wrote on Twitter that next season will be dedicated to Jackson and Gowdy. He said the team was already making plans to win when they lost another teammate.
"This one hit home fr (for real). ... This season for you and Bryce," Jeuday wrote.
Terrance Jackson was maybe all of 40 pounds when be first raced out onto the practice field to join his uncle's youth football team. He was a natural, his father said.
"He was the best player on the team," Jackson said.
His team was undefeated heading into the championship when all points scored were at the hands of the 5-year-old Jackson. The trophy, the largest of Terrance Jackson's massive collection, sits in the center of a wall-to-wall shelf in his family's kitchen.
"He had such excitement for the game," his father said. "He was like, 'Dad, am I going to play football next year?'"
Jackson went on to play for the next 10 years, earning trophies for "Most Valuable Player" multiple times.
Jackson's father, who had to drop out of youth football because of a lack of family support, never missed one of his son's games.
At Terrance Jackson's last game, Jackson saw what a good and generous son he raised when his son traded his brand new cleats _ cleats that he had been begging to get _ with teammate Bryce Gowdy, a superstar on the field who was homeless.
Terrance Jackson explained to this dad that Gowdy's family was struggling and that Gowdy brought so much to the team that he thought he should wear the prized cleats during the championship game.
Jackson, a sophomore, was new to the team after transferring from Delray Beach High School. His father said he was nervous and unfamiliar with almost everyone in the beginning until he met Gowdy.
Gowdy, Terrance Jackson, Sr. said, looked out for the newcomer occasionally lending him socks and gear.
"He really took a liking to Bryce," Jackson said.
Gowdy was not only something to behold on the field, but he also excelled academically. He won a full ride scholarship to Georgia Tech.
Finishing high school a half a year early, Gowdy was slated to leave for Atlanta and to start his college career just after the holidays.
On Nov. 30, a month before he stepped in front of a train, Gowdy posted on Twitter that he will forever hold his high school experience in his heart: "Moving is the hardest part but I will forever bleed scarlet and gold."
Gowdy's family said he was under enormous pressure and was worried about what would happen to his mother and brothers after he left for college.
His death hit Jackson incredibly hard, Terrance Jackson Sr. said.
The younger Jackson kept questioning why his friend, who had such a promising future ahead of him as a student and collegiate football player would take his life. He also questioned if there was more he could have done to help the teammate that helped him so much when he joined the team.
Then Jackson shut down.
"It took him to a dark place," Jackson's father said, explaining that things that previously gave his son joy were of little interest to him as he worked through his grief.
Two weeks after Gowdy died, Jackson's grandfather, R.C. Taylor, died, another crushing blow to the teen.
At the funeral, though, Jackson brought laughter to the church when he shared a story about how his grandfather would try to talk his grandson into going to the store to play his Fantasy Five numbers for him.
"PawPaw, you know I'm not 18 yet," Jackson told the mourners.
"It's OK. You look 18. You could pass for 20," he said his grandfather shot back.
"But I'm only 15," Jackson's mother, Tronicia Jackson, recalled her son saying at the service.
Not long after the eulogy, Jackson died, shot in the neck as a family dispute escalated into violence just steps away outside the Victory City Church in Riviera Beach.
Also killed was 47-year-old Royce Freeman. Wounded by gunfire was Shanita Miller, both family members of Tronicia Jackson's half sister.
Tronicia Jackson said she and her half sister Shantera Taylor had been having a dispute over funeral costs and a small insurance policy their father left them.
Riveria Beach police still have not released any records on the shooting but did say it was not random and that the shooters and victims knew one another. No arrests have been made.
"It's just messed up," said Tre'Von Taylor, Jackson's cousin, who was outside the church after the funeral when the dispute started.
Taylor ran around the the side of the church when he heard gunfire. He then learned his cousin had been shot. He peered around the corner and saw people giving Jackson CPR. It was too late.
"They did that to my cousin and he did nothing wrong," Taylor said.
Taylor said in honor of his cousin, he will work 10 times harder to be his very best on the football field.
An 11th-grade student at Palm Beach Lakes High School, Taylor said he and Jackson were committed to the sport and looked at football as an opportunity to help their families.
"You fight for one goal and that is to help your family," Taylor explained. "Maybe move my family to a different place and let them live a better life. That's what I want to do. We would always say we were the only ones left to get our families out _ further out of the hood so we can live better instead of struggling."
A memorial service for Jackson is scheduled for next week. He will be buried with a special shirt given to each member of the football team in honor of his good friend and teammate Gowdy.
