Parkland football players pay tribute to fallen coach in exhibition game

Aaron Feis died saving students during shooting

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Football players from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School this weekend paid tribute to their former coach, Aaron Feis, who was one of 17 people killed in the Valentine's Day mass shooting on the Parkland campus.

Each player touched a banner of Feis before hitting the field Saturday against Tallahassee's Florida High in Daytona Beach. The banner reads "Fearless Emotion Intensity Sacrifice." They affectionately rubbed the coach's belly on the banner.

"Every time he gets his belly rubbed, I'm sure (Feis), knowing his ass, giggles and thinks it's pretty cool. If we make him happy, we're happy," Stoneman Douglas head coach Willis May told the Daytona Beach News Journal.

The preseason exhibition game was one of the first times on the field for the Stoneman Douglas Eagles since the shooting. The Eagles lost 41-21.

"When I'm on the football field, I'm playing for the 17," player Aramis Warford told the newspaper. "That's what drives me. That's what I want to play for."

Feis is credited with saving students' lives during the shooting. A statewide school safety program put in place after the shooting is named after Feis.