On his first day of high school, Blake Weiman received a keychain. The carabiner is meant to connect every student at Columbine High School, a community that terror once tried to tear apart. Staying together took everyone, even those who arrived after April 20, 1999.

“It affects generations,” Weiman said. “Students at the time become parents and then they have kids that grow up in that area and hear the stories. It’s a community thing that will last generations.”

Weiman was 4 years old when 12 Columbine students and a teacher were murdered in a mass shooting that remains seared in the nation’s consciousness. Longtime principal Frank DeAngelis presented each member of an incoming class with a keychain, which were then joined together and hung in the school’s halls.

“What’s going to make Columbine special,” DeAngelis told the assembly, “is each of you represent a link.”

Links to Columbine High School are spread across the country, be it in courtrooms, concert halls or at a corner locker inside the Houston Astros’ spring training clubhouse. Weiman blends in with his baseball brethren, bleary-eyed from waking up before dawn but buoyed by the opportunity spring training affords. He is a 29-year-old left-handed reliever playing in his fourth organization since the Pittsburgh Pirates selected him in the eighth round of the 2017 draft out of the University of Kansas.

Only 11 other Columbine products have ever been drafted. Just one of them, Darrel Akerfelds, made the major leagues. Weiman wants to be the second, an accomplishment that would show people how Columbine has persevered following one horrific day in its past.

“I think it’s an unspoken responsibility that many people feel,” said Tom Tonelli, who taught Weiman sociology and remains at the school.

“After everything happened, there were so many questions and there was so much scrutiny that people really felt like, look, the only way we’re gonna get through this is if we rally together. … We had to depend on God and we had to depend on each other.”

Weiman believes everyone is a product of their past. He is hesitant to compare his experiences to anyone else’s, but few in baseball bear the responsibility of representing a school and community still synonymous with such tragedy. Both free-agent first baseman Anthony Rizzo and Baltimore Orioles infielder Colby Mayo attended Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Fla, site of the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history. Mayo was a sophomore and survived the shooting.

Twenty-six years haven’t numbed a nation’s visceral reaction to Columbine’s name alone. It carries a dark connotation to those outside Colorado. In a nation conditioned to mass casualties, Columbine is almost a watershed moment, one of the most prominent in a lengthy list of school shootings that have scarred a generation.

“Columbine is a great place where something horrible happened,” Tonelli said.

Added longtime football coach Andy Lowry: “We had one horrific day on April 20 and so many blessings since.”

Few outside of Colorado or Columbine can share this perspective. Tones of conversations can change when Weiman mentions it is his alma mater. Google “Columbine High School” and the first entry is a Wikipedia page devoted to the massacre. Underneath it is the school’s official website.

“I can’t tell you the number of kids when they go away and they said they went to Columbine High School, there are people that say, ‘Oh you went to that school where they kill people,’” DeAngelis said. “I think you get people like Blake and others (to) do things that demonstrate that (one) horrific event that happened does not define the school.”

Weiman’s roots at the school run deep. He is from Littleton, Colo., the largest city adjacent to Columbine. His father, J.D., served as Lowry’s confirmation sponsor. Weiman still calls Lowry his “uncle,” even though there is no familial relation.

“Our kids and our community and our school have been in that public spotlight for 26 years,” Lowry said. “Kids like Blake and other Columbine grads, they all go and represent and carry that. I don’t know if it’s a responsibility, but there’s pride of that perseverance and the relationship piece of what Columbine tries to build.”

As a 4-year-old, Weiman “didn’t really know what was going on” when the shooting occurred. His mother is a teacher, so the family discussed how it could change school security forever. Otherwise, he doesn’t remember any broader conversations.

“Even though they weren’t directly involved, they were involved in that community,” DeAngelis said. “They were there. They saw helicopters hovering over. They saw a makeshift memorial at the park.”

Weiman’s understanding of what happened developed over time. Columbine still employs 26 teachers who attended the school. One of them, Katie Tennessen, hid from the gunmen in the choir room for more than five hours and survived the attack.

The vulnerability to share that experience struck Weiman. Tennessen returned to “impact lives and be a part of that community because it made her who she is,” she told Weiman and his classmates.

“It’s definitely helped me. It’s definitely helped me off the field, too, just in life of how I view everybody that I come in contact with on a daily basis,” Weiman said.

“I’m very grateful for all of that, all those lessons and the people that had to experience the tragedy firsthand. I’m grateful for the perspective they’ve continued to live their lives with and have it trickle down to younger generations.”

Weiman still visits the school during the offseason to work out and catch up with Lowry and other teachers or coaches. Being an ambassador for Columbine is “not my driving force,” Weiman said, but he wants it to happen naturally if he makes the major leagues.

“You should be proud of where you come from because it shapes who you are,” Weiman said, “so I definitely have that sense of pride for that reason. … I carry it very pridefully with me in my daily life, but I would love the opportunity to pitch in the big leagues and spread awareness for that.”

Akerfelds threw his last big-league pitch eight years before the shooting, when Columbine was nothing more than another anonymous school in a country full of them.

Weiman won’t alter its current perception just by making the major leagues. He is one of a handful of hopefuls for the final spots within Houston’s depth-starved bullpen. The Astros’ “winning culture” attracted him, as did their heralded pitching development infrastructure.

That Weiman throws left-handed and still has minor-league options will aid his pursuit of a roster spot. At worst, he will start the season in Triple-A Sugar Land as depth. At best, he will fulfill his dream.

“I don’t want to say that Columbine forged him into who he is. Blake would’ve been a great kid if he went to any school, but I do think that it absolutely brings out the best.”

Tonelli is one of the 24 alumni who still teach at Columbine, a collection of people who’ve passed down the perspective Weiman now shares with others.

DeAngelis retired in 2014, the same year Weiman graduated. The principal planned it that way, hellbent on handing a Columbine diploma to every child and class enrolled in school on April 20, 1999 — elementary, high school or otherwise.

During Weiman’s graduation ceremony, DeAngelis delivered his keynote address. He reminded the class of the keychains they received four years earlier. The carabiners remained intact and hung on a wall inside the school throughout their tenure. DeAngelis took off one link.

“Even though you’re leaving,” he told them, “you’ll always be connected to Columbine.”