Tony Brunetti rested with his arms spread over a metal visiting bench after a late-afternoon practice, the drooping sun hinting at a quiet night ahead in north Nashville.
The Pearl-Cohn football coach stole glances at Mt. Calvary Missionary Baptist Church. That’s not far from where Hunters Lane student Cameron Frierson was shot and killed just a few days earlier, a few hundred yards off school property after Pearl-Cohn’s TSSAA football season opener on Aug. 21.
Brunetti had heard the shots, ran through the streetlight to Frierson and arrived to find four policemen who had staffed the game administering care. Frierson later died at Vanderbilt University Medical Center from his wounds. He was 16.
“I knew in my mind he was already gone,” Brunetti
said.
It was a rare case that Pearl-Cohn coaches say feeds the narrative that north Nashville and the school are dangerous places. Brunetti is in his 20th season as the Pearl-Cohn coach and 25th overall and cannot remember another instance where a person was killed near the stadium around the time of a game.
Pearl-Cohn assistant coach Andre Davis, who grew up a few miles from the stadium and played for Brunetti, also said he’s never experienced it.
“I get tired of people saying, ‘Oh, this happened at Pearl again.’ No. Hell, no,” Brunetti said. “I’ve been here 25 years. I’ve been here through the good and the bad. And right now, this school is in a good place.”
Pearl-Cohn football doesn't want to be defined by area's crimes
Pearl-Cohn coaches understand the reality about the area in which the school resides.
The community sought change after a landmark 2018 Brookings study showed the 37208 zip code had the highest incarceration rates (14%) in the whole country for individuals born between 1980 and 1986.
Brunetti knows his players may witness violence at home or in their neighborhood.
“I’m from inner-city Memphis. The neighborhoods are very similar. You have bad things, people shooting at each other,” Brunetti said. “But this neighborhood is changing. You see how many new houses are in this neighborhood? Gentrification has really changed the whole dynamics of the community. I guess when things like this happen it brings back old memories of how things used to be, but it’s not like that anymore. We're not just a rough-ass neighborhood and we're not just a thuggish school. There are a lot of good things happening here.”
Last week’s homicide was the second to occur in Nashville’s 37208 zip code this year, according to Metro Nashville Police’s Uniform Crime Reporting Incidents Map. Three homicides occurred within the zip code in 2025.
The map shows that of the 918 Part I incidents — which include homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft — in the 37208 zip code this year, 16 (1.7%) have occurred within the four-block radius around Pearl-Cohn.
Those statistics shouldn’t define Pearl-Cohn’s mission, Brunetti said, noting that the football facility and high school are places where positive change happens “99% of the time."
“As coaches, we work so hard to change the negativity and the thoughts (around the school). It kind of stings. It’s like, ‘Damn, what can we do from here to fix it?’” Davis said. “But it also makes us get back to work and pour into these kids. This is why we do it.”
'We're not a bad school'
Both coaches said players were affected to a degree by what happened, although most people were gone from the area at the time of the shooting.
According to Metro Nashville Police Department, police staffing for a Metro high school football game includes an area supervisor, one supervisor for each game, five officers for each game and four school safety officers who can respond to calls. MNPS has requested three additional officers for Pearl-Cohn's Aug. 27 home game against Christ Presbyterian Academy.
According to Metro Police, MBA already hired additional officers through Metro’s Secondary Employment Unit to be on the visiting sideline and in the parking lot during fan departures. Most people were already gone when the shooting occurred.
“We’re not a bad school. Nothing usually happens like that (shooting) here,” Pearl-Cohn senior defensive back Stephon Saulter said. “We come, we do our work, make sure everybody’s good, get the job done at the end of the day and make sure everyone's safe. For something like that to happen right outside our school, that’s really sad. We don’t want anything like that to ever happen.”
Tyler Palmateer covers high school sports for The Tennessean. Have a story idea for Tyler? Reach him at tpalmateer@tennessean.com and on the X platform, @tpalmateer83.
He also contributes to The Tennessean's high school sports newsletter, The Bootleg. Subscribe to The Bootleg here.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Pearl-Cohn football moves forward after off-campus shooting. 'This is why we do this'
