Slain athlete dreamed of attending a university
Speedy receiver killed at a party in Brockton
No. 8 was probably the fastest player in the league, and though he did not know how to put his pads on when the season started, the junior rookie helped lead his high school football team to victory last season in the state's Division Four Super Bowl.
Jose Gurley , also a track star and basketball player, was planning to be the first in his family to attend college, a goal his principal at West Bridgewater Middle-Senior High School said looked promising.
Early Saturday, while at a party near his mother's home in Brockton, someone fired two shots -- hitting Gurley in the wrist and the back -- that left the 17-year-old in a pool of blood, prosecutors said yesterday. He was taken to Caritas Good Samaritan Medical Center, then flown to Brigham and Women's Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 5:51 a.m.
Bridget Norton Middleton , a spokeswoman from the Plymouth district attorney's office, said no one had been arrested for the shooting by last night. It was not clear whether Gurley had been the target.
Scores of friends, family, and faculty gathered yesterday at the school, which Gurley, who was from Brockton, had attended for three years. He was one of more than 100 students in the town's school choice program, a lottery system that allows about 25 students per grade to attend West Bridgewater from other school districts.
"This is a huge loss for us," said Jeffrey Szymaniak , the principal. "There's never been a victim of violence in our school like this. This really hits us at home. Now we have a face to all the victims of violence we read about in Brockton and Boston. We're just trying to figure out why this happened. He was the kind of kid who went out of his way to be friendly."
Several people had called police to complain about the party Friday night, Middleton said. Police received the call about the shooting at 3:02 a.m. They found Gurley lying in front of the Roosevelt Heights housing project on Arthur Paquin Way.
Gurley's grandmother, Donna, with whom he lived during the school week, was called about 4:30 a.m. She said he was the family's second victim of gun violence. Her son, Shane, was killed six years ago, also when he was 17 years old, she said.
"This is extremely hard for our family to bear," she said by phone from her home in West Bridgewater. "He was a happy young man, really upbeat, and he was always making other people smile. He had a lot of friends and he brought a lot of joy to the school."
She said he was considered the fourth-fastest runner in Massachusetts and planned to study business management at a college in Atlanta. She said he had no ties to any gang and was the victim of a random attack.
"He wanted to show his family that he could be someone -- and make a good name for the Gurleys," she said. "Just the other day, he was saying, 'I'm Jose Gurley; I'm going to be different. I'm going to go to college.' "
Gurley was not eligible to play sports his first two years at the school, because of academic problems, Szymaniak said. But he improved his grades and became eligible this past school year.
It did not take long for the school to appreciate his athletic prowess.
On the first day of practice, Coach Bill Panos said he had to help Gurley with his pads. But by the time the season began, Gurley started as a receiver and safety.
During the season, he made critical plays that helped the West Bridgewater Wildcats win the Super Bowl. Perhaps the most important play, Panos said, was a 60-yard touchdown he scored against Nantucket High School. The Wildcats won by less than a touchdown, the first time they had beaten Nantucket in Panos's 21 years as a coach.
Gurley, who started every game of the season, also made a critical tackle in the Super Bowl against Brighton to prevent a touchdown.
"More important than statistics -- and he was the fastest kid in the league -- he was a terrific kid," Panos said. "He enjoyed everything. He always had a smile on his face, even through the hardest times. He was really a pleasure to coach, and the kids loved him. We're all going to miss him."
David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com. 