Samuel Blas, a member of the Tyler Legacy, soccer team, was shot in 2021 when he was 14 years old. He is pictured with Legacy soccer coach Marty Germany.

On Aug. 8, 2021, then 14-year-old Samuel Blas was at a quinceañera at Hillside Park in Tyler when he and his friends were going to watch a soccer game across the street.

Blas loved soccer. Little did he know, what happened next would affect his ability to play soccer going forward.

“As soon as we were going to go across the street, that’s when everything happened,” Blas said. “All I remember is just it sounded like a firecracker and my ears popped.

Gunshots were fired and Blas was struck.

“I remember I just went down,” Blas said. “I didn’t even know what was happening. It just happened so quick. One of the bullets hit my arm. And the second bullet hit my back, which immediately made me go down.”

Blas’ friends Victor Banda and Jeferson Perez were with him that night.

“As we were turning, we just heard like cracks that sounded like fireworks,” Banda said. “I didn’t really know what was going on until I saw my friend on the floor. I thought he was joking at first, and then I realized it was real and then everybody just ran. I was in shock.”

“At first I didn’t know what was going to happen,” Perez said. “I took cover behind a truck for safety and then I heard Samuel, he was screaming and asking for help. It shocked me. I was scared at the moment.”

Blas’ mother, Rosalba, was at the quinceañera earlier in the night but had left. She received a call while at her sister’s house.

“We were about to leave when I got a phone call,” Rosalba said. “I left my phone in the car, and my daughter answered the phone, and she said ‘Mom, Sammy got shot.’”

Rosalba rushed to the scene.

“As soon as I got there, and I saw my son, and I thought he was not the one on the floor,” Rosalba said. “He had no shoes and no T-shirt.”

Blas was taken to the hospital where tests were run. The doctor told Blas’ mother that Blas had been shot in the spine and paralyzed from T4 to T5. She said she asked the doctor the percentage of him walking again, and the doctor responded with 10 percent.

Blas said he lost feeling and movement in his legs.

“It just felt like a light switch. It just completely turned off,” he said.

Blas had surgery before being sent to Houston for therapy. While in Houston, he got bacteria in his lungs and got pneumonia and COVID-19. Blas said he was also in a coma for about two days.

Blas, now in a wheelchair, continued his recovery process, and did school for the eighth and ninth grades at home.

Doctors recently suggested Blas transition back into school.

Tyler Legacy head boys soccer coach Marty Germany, who also teaches U.S. history at Tyler Legacy High School said he received an email from (Courtney) Miller saying Blas was coming back to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays and what his schedule would be, and he would be in Germany’s history class.

“I checked his schedule and saw they had him in a P.E. class, and I originally thought it was silly,” Germany said.

He said he talked to assistant coaches Chris Clemons and Matt Wright before going to Miller’s office.

“I asked a pointed question,” Germany said.

Germany asked, ‘Why do we have a soccer kid in a P.E. class?’ She looked at me with a look and said, ‘you realize he’s in a wheelchair, right?’ I said, ‘yes, I know he’s in a wheelchair, but he’s a soccer kid in a P.E. class. Why are you doing that?’

It was ultimately up to Blas and his family. Blas’ mother said he received a call from the school asking about Blas joining the soccer team. She said he handed him the phone and immediately knew the answer.

“He was really excited to be on the team,” Rosalba said. “He was texting his friends that he was coming back.”

“I was really excited,” Blas said. “I was coming back from therapy (in Houston). I was very happy. I’ve been playing since I was 3. All of my family played it, my siblings, as well. We’re all just kind of a soccer family.”

Blas is the third oldest child of six with an older brother and sister and a younger brother and two sisters.

While Blas, now a sophomore, can’t play soccer like he used to, he is back on a soccer team with his friends such as Banda and Perez.

Like other members on the team, Blas received his own locker and his own soccer practice shirt.

Germany is in his 26th year at Lee/Legacy and was originally going to retire in the spring, but ultimately decided to keep coaching and teaching, which has now led him to be reunited with Blas.

Germany said he met Blas when he was in the seventh trade at Three Lakes Middle School.

“We watched him and we have a Google file where we list the players at the middle schools we have, and we looked back at it,” Germany said. “Next to Samuel, it said, ‘good player, excellent crossing ability.’”

Blas was a midfielder. Now, he has to sit on the sideline.

But no matter what, he is a member of the Red Raider soccer team.

“This is where he belongs,” Germany said. “He’s one of us. He’s a Tyler Legacy soccer kid. Once you’re here, you’re always here.”