Diaz ‘embodied everything about Osceola’
Diaz, considered "An amazing person, genuinely liked by everyone, students and teachers alike," died tragically in a car crash Oct. 1 on Interstate 4. SUBMITTED PHOTO
Osceola High School Class of 2016 alum Destinie Diaz played sports like volleyball as a Kowboy, loved her fellow athletes as a trainer, and they and the community loved her back.
It is that community which is still coming to grips with the 25-year-old’s untimely death as a result of a deadly Oct. 1 overnight car crash.
A candlelight vigil for Diaz will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 8 at the Kissimmee Lakefront. A service will be held at Living Water Fellowship (4101 Pleasant Hill Road) on Saturday, Oct. 19 at 11 a.m.
According to a Florida Highway Patrol report, Diaz was killed on Interstate 4 near State Road 528 just after midnight when her car Hyundai Elantra collided with a Ford F-750 pickup truck in a construction zone in the westbound lanes. The impact caused the car to rotate and then strike the left side of the truck, an FHP crash report said.
FHP says it continues to investigate the details of the deadly crash. While law enforcement did not identify her as the victim, friends and family have been mourning her loss in the crash. Diaz’s mother, Johanna Madera said she was returning home from her job at Bahama Breeze on International Drive in Orlando.
“She loved sports, especially football,” Madera emotionally recalled. “She touched a lot of people, was friendly, happy and beautiful. I can’t think of anybody she had problems with. She loved Osceola High, and loved Kissimmee.”
Diaz came with her family to Kissimmee from San Juan, Puerto Rico at the age of 9, and was a product of Flora Ridge Elementary and Neptune Middle schools before attending Osceola High, where she was voted the 2016 Homecoming queen – on a night that she was also on the sidelines as an athletic trainer.
“She was in her dress for the ceremony, and couldn’t get out of that dress fast enough. We told her she had to keep in on for the pictures at least,” said Megan McKenna, Osceola’s former head trainer and now a teacher and graduation coach at the school. “In the second half she wore her sash, and the tiara, and her t-shirt and khaki pants and carried on taking care of those boys.”
As a Kowboy athlete she competed in volleyball, basketball and track and field, and maintained her connection as an athletic trainer. While she moved on from Kissimmee – she attended Tallahassee Community College to study communications – she returned home to attend Valencia College. Her plan was to work to save up to eventually train as a dental assistant, her mother said.
Steve Mason was her guidance counselor at Osceola High and is the Kowboys basketball coach. During her time there she babysat the children of teachers, and when they grew up to play sports, she’d come to OHS to watch them.
“Just last month she texted Jordan (Mason’s son, a member of the Kowboy basketball team) for our schedule, she wanted to come watch the team play,” Mason said. “She was an amazing person, genuinely liked by everyone, students and teachers alike. Her passing is a big blow to our community.”
Even not when playing, she found a home on the sidelines, as a manager on the Kowboys’ Class 7A state basketball team, and as an athletic trainer, where McKenna worked side by side with her starting with Diaz’s sophomore year.
“I’ve known Destinie since she was 15, we brought her into the training program and it grew with her, and she grew with it,” McKenna said. “She embodied everything about Osceola. She came from a hard life (her father passed away in her youth) so I think it helped her to be around the program.”
She became a guru of the game, and would chide the Osceola defensive players on the sidelines when they were out of position or just plain not playing Kowboy football. Her love of the game led her to travel to places like Baton Rouge, La., and Tampa to watch the LSU Tigers and NFL’s Buccaneers play as an adult.
“She became like a daughter to all of us in the Kowboy family. I consider her family,” McKenna said. “She came into our lives with a lot of energy and stayed in our hearts forever.”
