PITTSBURGH
One year after five players were shot in the worst act of random violence to strike a major college sports program, Duquesne University’s basketball team is in healing mode.
Three of the five shooting victims are playing, and a fourth should return next year. The Dukes are coming off a 4-0 exhibition tour in Canada over the Labor Day weekend. And there’s more optimism than there’s been in years surrounding a program that hasn’t been to the NCAA tournament since 1977.
Before attending a chapel service held this week on the one-year anniversary of the shootings, Coach Ron Everhart found himself reflecting about the damage done but also about the unexpected positives that have followed.
“The one thing that overwhelms you is it could have been so much worse,” says Everhart, who had yet to coach a Dukes game when the shootings took place following a Black Student Union party. “At first, that’s all we could give thanks for, that there were no fatalities.”
Two junior college transfers, Sam Ashaolu (head wounds) and Stuard Baldonado (back, arm), were critically injured; Ashaolu was in grave danger for hours, and Baldonado came perilously close to being paralyzed.
A pair of major college transfers, Shawn James (foot) and Kojo Mensah (arm, shoulder), also needed months to heal, and the 6-foot-10 James still has occasional pain caused by the breakup of scar tissue.
