ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – The gymnastics coach for the 9-year-old girl who was murdered inside of her home last Wednesday is reflecting on how the girl impacted those around her.
Coach Ronna Alexin said she’s been coaching gymnasts for 50 years and has spent the past year training T’Yonna Major.
“She loved being in this gym. Could not wait to come to practice,” Alexin said. “She was years above what her true age was in maturity and everything, and she had goals to do college gymnastics one day.”
On Friday, all four of the Metro Orlando Gym locations held an open gym fundraiser for Major’s family.
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Alexin said Major’s father called her the day of the shooting and told her she had been killed. Alexin then broke the news to her teammates that Major had died.
“I told all her teammates. I said, ‘Listen, someday we are going to go to Heaven, and we will see her again.’ I said, ‘I’m going to get there before you guys, and she’ll probably be standing there with her little fingers on the gates of heaven, and she’ll say, ‘Come on, Coach Donna, let’s teach these angels to do backflips.’ She’ll still be 9, and she will still be in her learned,” Alexin said.
Alexin plans to speak at Major’s funeral.
“To think 30 minutes, if the guy had come 30 minutes earlier, she’d still have been at school. 30 minutes later, she’d already by on her way to practice. So that just stands in my mind that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Alexin said.
You can click here to make a donation to the family.
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