NEWPORT NEWS, VA (WTKR) — It's fitting that on the final day of the FIFA World Cup, the most popular place in Newport News is an indoor soccer facility, HR Sportsplex.
The players there on Sunday share a passion the families of Luke Messick and Conner Guido saw every day.
Both goalkeepers looked at soccer as a way of life.
"Conner played soccer as long as I can remember when he started walking," Tammy Gweedo McGee, Conner's mother, said. "He loved the game, and we were always traveling. Everywhere we went, every week was soccer."
"Watching Luke with soccer, he was one of those people that if he would see someone who was not included, he was the guy that would bring them in," Luke's father, David, said. "He was always looking for a way to include people, bring them into the sport."
Those families share something much deeper than just a love of soccer. Conner was killed in a car crash while leaving Tabb High School in 2019 at just 16-years-old. Two years later, Luke, a Kecoughtan graduate, died the same way in an accident on I-95. He was 22-years-old.
"It's a roller coaster," David said. "Still very sad, it's a little raw still."
"It's really hard. It's really, really super hard," Tammy said. "He would have been here, and he should be here. What happened to him shouldn't have happened."
Two families brought together by tragedy and a passion to save someone else the same pain they've been through.
"It's what keeps me going," Gweedo McGee said.
That brought them back to soccer. The families hosting the 2nd Keeper's Cup Futsal Tournament, centering their message of safe driving around the game their sons loved so much.
Guido McGee started the tournament in 2020, the Messick family joining the next year.
"We have a pledge board back here that we ask all the kids to sign, to pledge to drive safe," Tammy said. "Don't drive without a license, don't text and drive."
The money raised goes back to the Conner Gweedo Memorial Foundation and Luke Messick Futbol Charities, Inc.
"Before (Luke) passed away, he was supporting a group of orphans in Ghana that he found on instagram," David said. "We created the foundation to be able to continue that."
The games on the field are what Luke and Conner dreamed of, but their families are ensuring their legacies will be felt well beyond the pitch.
"Luke would've really loved seeing so many of his friends coming back here, playing, and raising money for great, great causes," David said.
"I know (Conner) is proud and I know he's looking down on us," Tammy said. "I know we're doing good."
