Service celebrates life of fallen football player
By Lynn Henning / The Detroit News
SOUTHFIELD -- Brandon Hall might not have realized it, the degree to which he had influenced a world around him. It did not stop others from celebrating his life Monday at Word of Faith International Christian Center in Southfield.
Outside a stately place of worship, three buses idled after they had carried dozens of University of Minnesota football players to Hall's 11 a.m. funeral. Led by Coach Glen Mason, Minnesota's football team had gathered at 5 a.m. for a charter flight to Detroit, all so that the Gophers could bid goodbye to their 19-year-old teammate, who died of a gunshot wound in Minneapolis in the early morning hours of Sept 1.
"Kids more than respected him," Mason said afterward, standing by the team bus beneath a hot noon sun. "They loved him."
Hall was a Detroit native and Finney High School graduate who had played for the Gophers only a few hours before he died. He was out with friends celebrating an opening-game victory when, during an exchange with strangers who were thought to have robbed a teammate, Hall was shot.
The extinguishing of a vibrant young life explained Monday's scene inside Word of Faith. Dressed in an immaculate dark suit, Hall lay inside a casket of silver metal and polished wood.
Floral arrangements engulfed the viewing area, some of them bursting in maroon-and-gold hues representing Minnesota's team colors.
Hundreds of friends, family and anonymous mourners listened to a spirit-raising soloist sing "Go to the Rock" ahead of graceful words by Bishop Keith A. Butler, who officiated.
"Remember his vigor, remember his vitality, remember his joy," Rev. Butler said.
It was, said Rev. Butler, essential that the young man who lay in state before the assembly be celebrated for the quality of his 19 years in a "dangerous" world where long lives cannot be presumed.
"Brandon was a young man who cared," Rev. Butler said.
Hall was a defensive lineman at Minnesota, a big and powerful redshirt freshman who had, since his days as an athlete at Finney, held hopes of playing professional football.
But it was hardly an athlete, only, whose life was recalled Monday. "He was a talented, bright, and loving person, who had a positive, long-lasting impact on all he met," said Barbara Hardy, who read a eulogy to Hall.
His mother, Dorothy Hall, was credited by Rev. Butler and others Monday for having raised a "gentle giant" who had an ability to enrich others. His life might have been filled with the usual boyhood challenges, the speakers agreed, but Brandon Hall had embraced faith and values and had, in real ways, triumphed for a person so young.
Athletes and friends from all chapters in his life spilled into the elegant, auditorium-sized Word of Faith Center for a service that lasted 45 minutes.
Mason and the University of Minnesota football players were seated near the front, opposite family members who alternatingly shed tears and shared smiles.
"Brandon was a good man, and he had such potential," Rev. Butler said. "We'd have loved to have had him for another 80 years."
Mason could only nod, somberly, and likewise wish events had gone differently nine nights earlier.
"Seeing Brandon lying there this morning, that was tough, real tough," Mason said quietly as players boarded the three buses en route to a charter flight home.
"It's been a long-haul week," Mason continued. A long stream of cars began to fall into procession, heading into the sun for Brandon Hall's final journey, to Lincoln Memorial Park Cemetery in Clinton Township.
Earl Wright, 67, of Detroit stood outside the Word of Faith Center, marveling at the turnout for a 19-year-old man's funeral.
"I didn't know him, I just read about it in the paper," said Wright, a member at Word of Faith. "But it's just such a blessing, looking over there and seeing those three buses with Minnesota players.
"He must have been a very special young man."
