The Mountain View High School community is mourning the loss of Lucinda Daniels on Thursday.
Daniels, 44, died on Wednesday morning, according to a close family friend. Her mother, Olga Gonzalez, first told KTVU of Lucinda’s death on Wednesday evening.
“She was a really, really, good mom,” Gonzalez told the station. “She was a good football mom, too. Her happiest place was there.”
She first collapsed last Friday, when she rushed down from the stands at a Mountain View football game to check on her injured son, Dillon, who broke his leg and dislocated his ankle.
Dillon’s dad, Dale, passed out on the field before Lucinda collapsed. Dale checked out OK but Lucinda was rushed to the hospital and determined to have suffered a stroke, according to family friends. A second stroke Saturday left her without brain activity. An organ donor, Daniels was put on life support while medical officials searched for matches.
Folks who knew Lucinda, a mother of four, have described her as a passionate supporter of her family and the football team.
School officials checked in with the Daniels family and were told that Lucinda would’ve wanted the football team to go forward with its scheduled game against Live Oak on Friday night.
“Dale told me that’s what Mom would want,” said Paul Steffen, a family friend and assistant coach on the varsity team. “The school got the OK from the family that it’s the right thing to do. It’ll be healthy for everyone involved. To get back to some semblance of normalcy.”
Dillon Daniels, a senior on the team, was scheduled to undergo surgery on Thursday.
His younger brother, Brandon, is a freshman on the junior varsity team and is expected to play in the JV game, which kicks off a few hours before the 7 p.m. varsity game on Friday night.
Both Daniels brothers were at football practice on Monday and Tuesday.
“We’re trying to explain to the kids life does go on and you have to support your family and friends and try to balance that,” Steffen said. “We really appreciate everybody’s support.”
A GoFundMe fundraiser for the Daniels family had received over 1,200 donations totaling more than $125,000 as of Thursday afternoon.
“This is a terrible tragedy and it played out in an unbelievable way last Friday night,” Mountain View sports boosters president Brett Schiller wrote in an email. “The generosity of the community is coming through but will never be able to fill the void of the loss. Lucinda was a wonderful person and you could always hear her cheering in the stands at MV football games.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com