An overflow crowd packed the theater and lobby of Marquette University's Varsity Theatre for a memorial Mass for two college lacrosse players killed in a crash by alleged drunken driver Sept. 6. (Clay Ellis-Escobar)
by Sophia Tiedge
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An overflow crowd filled Marquette University's Varsity Theatre Sept. 6 to mourn the deaths of two college lacrosse players killed a day earlier in an alleged drunken-driving crash.
Noah Snyder and Scott Michaud died Sept. 5 and four other students, three of them lacrosse players received non-life threatening injuries. The crash occurred at 5 p.m. at 27th Street and St. Paul Avenue, less than a mile from campus, when a second vehicle collided with the students' vehicle. It's unclear who was driving the vehicle with the students.
A 41-year-old woman arrested at the same scene shortly after the crash was driving while intoxicated, according to jail booking logs reviewed by the Marquette Wire. The case has been referred to the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office. No charges had been filed and the woman's name had not been publicly released as of Sept. 7.
The theater's marquee read, "OUR HEARTS ARE WITH YOU MEN'S LAX TEAM."
When only standing room was available in the 1,000-seat facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Jesuit university, students and members of the Marquette community lined the walls of the theater and watched the Mass from the lobby.
Jesuit Fr. John Thiede, Marquette's vice president for mission and ministry, presided at Mass. During the homily, he said that he's become the "unofficial chaplain" for the men's lacrosse team. He was at the hospital on Sept. 5 comforting the grieving team.
Scott Michaud (Courtesy of Marquette Athletics)
Thiede echoed an excerpt from one of the readings: "Jesus wept," saying it's OK to feel whatever emotions come up. In the reading, Jesus wept for his friend Lazarus, Thiede said, and the people closest to Snyder and Michaud should feel like they can do the same.
Kimo Ah Yun, Marquette's president, sat in the first row at Mass and delivered one of the readings.
"Noah and Scott's lives were taken too soon and we share in the heartbreak of their teammates, coaches and those who knew them personally," Ah Yun said in an email sent to students Sept. 6.
Seven Jesuit priests concelebrated the Mass. Mike Broeker, vice president and director of Marquette Athletics, said at the end of Mass that the two students will always be part of the Marquette community.
Noah Snyder (Courtesy of Marquette Athletics)
Snyder and Michaud were members of the men’s lacrosse team. Student athletes and members of Marquette's men's lacrosse team filled the theater's first rows. Every few minutes, one person would wrap an arm around the next.
Snyder, from Getzville, New York, was a student in the College of Business Administration. Michaud, from Springboro, Ohio, was a biomedical sciences major in the College of Health Sciences.
Snyder, 20, is survived by five siblings; Michaud, 19, is survived by two brothers.
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Marquette Athletics canceled all weekend events to allow the community to grieve, they said in a post on X Sept. 6.
Marquette has made counseling services, Campus Ministry and the Employee Assistance Program available 24/7 for Marquette community members in need of support.
When the Mass ended, many attendees remained seated, not ready to say goodbye quite yet.
Outside the theater following Mass, members of the Marquette Athletics community stood in a circle, holding hands, leaning on each other for support.
In a letter to the Marquette community, Ah Yun, the university president, shared "Prayer on the loss of a loved one, attributed to the Quaker tradition. "We give them back to you, dear Lord, Who gave them to us," the prayer says. "Yet as you did not lose them in giving, so we have not lost them by their return."
