Casa Roble community honors beloved senior Julian Snyder, killed in crash. ‘Life is not fair’
They filled the home side of the stadium because it was the place to be, people young and old squeezing in.
But this was not normal. There was no music. There was no band, no cheerleaders, no food trucks and no celebration to cheer on a football team, a ritual on fall nights at Casa Roble High School. This was instead a wake on Monday night. The crowd was a sea of sadness. Orangevale was saying goodbye to one of its own.
A Casa Roble senior football lineman named Julian Snyder, the gregarious kid in class and in the quad with dreams of becoming a fireman, was killed late Saturday night in an automobile accident, just over 24 hours after the Rams’ season ended in a CIF playoff game in El Dorado County. Snyder was 17.
Snyder was a passenger in a car that was off to pick up Snyder’s stranded sophomore brother, Josh, and others, after their car had a flat tire. Snyder’s vehicle was a roll-over accident around 11:15 p.m. Saturday, hitting another vehicle on the corner of Auburn and Sierra College boulevards. Snyder was ejected from the car during the rollover.
He was transported to a local hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries, said Lt. Chris Ciampa, a spokesman for the Roseville Police Department. Ciampa added that the investigation will continue for a few weeks. Alcohol or drugs are not suspected, Ciampa said.
What struck so many who reflected on Snyder as the emotions rose and the temperatures dropped was his good nature. He was kind and caring outside of a helmet and shoulder pads, and he was strong and determined on game night.
Snyder was a hugger. He hugged every teammate could get his hands on, and every coach and parent, after Casa Roble’s season-ending loss to Union Mine last Friday. On Monday, the hugs were for his grieving family during a moving tribute, including his parents. Snyder’s kid brother wore his idol’s letterman jacket.
There were also laughs. You can’t talk about Snyder for long without some joy. Teammates, classmates and coaches spoke Monday night of what they appreciate about the thick-bodied sort with long hair and an endless grin. Many of them wore T-shirts with Snyder’s No. 52 on the back. Some remembered Snyder’s “goofy laugh”, others his desire to “eat any kind of food”, and others on how he made everyone feel welcomed. Snyder was everybody’s friend, and he left behind a team, a school and a community trying to comprehend how this happened.
Football offers a lot to players and a school. It can also heal. People at Casa Roble consoled each other, held hands and held each other.
“I’m going to miss him,” Casa Roble senior lineman Darren Dalton told the crowd of his best friend on the team. “We’d always laugh. I’d do anything for him and I know he’d do anything for me.”
A moment earlier, Dalton and other members of Casa Roble’s offensive line hit the blocking sled one last time. The sled was placed on the field, near the track with Snyder’s jersey placed onto one of the sled bodies. People cheered through tears.
A moment later, members of the Casa Roble football team performed a haka for Snyder’s family, who sat on chairs on the track. The haka is a dance/chant with a lot of movement and stamping of feet, a tradition for Hawaiians and Samoans and other cultures. It’s been used for celebrations, sporting events — and for funerals.
The players embraced Snyder’s family after the haka to remind them that they share their grief and that they are not alone.
A coach’s grief
Chris Horner knew Snyder as a student and as a football player. Horner is the longtime Casa Roble football coach who had Snyder as a teacher’s assistant in his first-period math class for three semesters. They shared stories and laughs, football goals and dreams. They became close.
“I can’t believe it,” Horner said in an interview. “This hurts all of us. Life is not fair. Julian was my guy. I’d see him every day. I knew I was going to have a substitute teacher (on Monday) and I was sitting at home, not sure what to do. My wife (Michele) told me, ‘Babe, you’ve got to be on campus.”
Horner hung out on the campus quad to be there for students. He said he was blown away by “how everyone had such a good story about Julian,” Horner said. “Students stopped by to write a note in a card. Unbelievable.”
People signed a banner on the fence outside the stadium for Snyder, and they admired photos of him taken by team photographer Tim Engle.
Horner has coached for 25 years, and coaches form a fraternity. Coaches can relate to each other’s joys and anguish, but there is no page in the coaching manual on how to cope when a student-athlete dies. Coaches are supposed to have all the answers, and Horner has none for this tragedy.
Horner does know that teenagers aren’t supposed to grieve one of their own. They’re supposed to be basking in the final months of their senior year. What he can do is be there for them, and they for each other.
“I’m a crier, wear my emotion on my sleeves,” Horner said. “It’s something we tell our football players: It’s okay to show emotions, to be sad that your friend is gone. We’re tough, burly dudes in football who can let their guard down and be human.”
Horner’s classroom is a hub for players and students of any walk. In the back of the room, there is a mannequin. The game jersey for the next football game is placed on the mannequin each week. That mannequin will now don Snyder’s 52 — every day, year round.
“It’ll stay on the mannequin,” Horner said. “No one else here is going to wear 52. I’ll have that number to look at in class and to remember.”
Horner said his last memory of Snyder will be the most lasting.
“Friday night, our last game, and Julian is making his rounds after it’s over,” Horner said. “He and my son, Ethan, had a sincere moment and hug. I had one with Julian, a heartfelt moment. That’s my last memory of Julian, and it’s so impactful and powerful, and something I’ll always cherish.”
The Casa Roble football booster’s club created a fundraiser page to help the Snyder family cover funeral costs.
This story was originally published November 19, 2024 at 11:28 AM.