Ashley Whittington looked into the stands and turned disgustedly to her friend on the Catawba College cheerleading squad.
“You’d think he wouldn’t be talking trash after all that’s happened,” she said of the offending fan.
Whittington, a freshman cheerleader from Winston-Salem, tried to pump up the crowd Monday night, just like always.
The men’s basketball team took the floor, with Jeff Vail’s voice booming out on the public address system and Howard Platt on hand to broadcast the game on WSTP-1490.
Same as usual.
Except for the “glazed look”in the Indians’ eyes that head coach Jim Baker said he saw.
Except for guard Duke Phipps limping to the end of the bench with the aid of a cane.
Except for the white headbands each player sported with the dark “11” drawn in.
Everything was the same, all right. Except for the small memorial outside GoodmanGymnasium —candles, pictures, Catawba football T-shirts. Memories of Darris Morris, killed late Friday night in a campus shooting that also wounded Phipps and two other Catawba students.
“When it’s said and done, you’ll look back and say this is probably a heck of an effort,”Baker said he told his team following Monday’s 80-71 victory over Newport News. “With what our college and our team has been through, such an emotional roller coaster … It’s hard to play and compete when bad things happen, but I think it gives you an outlet.”
Catawba postponed Saturday’s game against Carson-Newman to Wednesday. Playing less than 18 hours following the shootings was out of the question.
A debate also emerged over whether to play last night’s nonconference game against Division III Apprentice.
“We’ve been down this road before. When the terrorist attacks hit, we played that Saturday,”Catawba Athletics Director Dennis Davidson said. “Had the memorial been tonight, we wouldn’t have, but we just decided to do it. It felt right.”
The Indians faced the task of once again balancing respect and distraction. Only this time it was harder.
“That was a little bit remote,” Baker said of the Sept. 11 attacks. “But when you walk down to the gym and you see the memorial and there’s where a guy you knew got shot, it weighed on everybody tonight.”
Davidson discussed the situation with Baker, and the decision was made to play. The Indians took part in a short, albeit solid, workout Sunday and would’ve practiced Monday anyway.
“We wanted to come back and get our mind off all the things that happened,”said Kevin Petty, Phipp’s backcourt mate who led the Indians with 19 points last night. “Everybody’s feeling bad about what happened. Coach is trying to get us back in here quick as possible, get our minds off what happened and just have us sitting in our dorm rooms.”
Everybody on the basketball team knew Morris. “D-Mo”the star linebacker also helped out at Catawba basketball camps and played pickup ball in Goodman Gym during the summer.
And he always — always — wore that white Nike headband. So the Indians took the floor Monday with white headbands imprinted with the No. 11.
Phipps, too, sported the headband. Only he added a cane and a heavily bandaged right hand in addition to his blue jeans and cream-colored sweater. Instead of starting his 18th straight game this season wearing his white No. 45 jersey, Phipps hobbled to the last chair on the sideline.
He sat down painfully and looked on expressionless throughout the first half. He had taken some pain medication prior to the game that made him sleepy, he said.
Baker got the call early Saturday morning that Phipps had been shot —and that among the shooting victims, one of them was in bad shape.
“I didn’t know if it was Duke who’d been shot bad and I rushed to the hospital,”Baker said. “You’re relieved it’s not Duke, then you find out it’s another kid. You go from high to low to high to low.”
Baker was with Phipps this weekend when the bullet was removed from his leg. The doctor described the bullet as flat on two sides, like the corner of a stop sign, Baker said, suggesting a ricochet shot. The round hit the side of Phipps’ hand, taking a chunk out of it before entering his right thigh and nearly exiting.
The round missed bone and major blood vessels. Phipps’ injury is like that of a torn hamstring. He’ll be able to return to the lineup as soon as he can play with the pain, perhaps as early as next week.
Phipps’ road to physical recovery began Monday afternoon when he took a spin on a stationary bike. Healing from the emotional aspects of Friday night’s shooting promises to be a long road, as well.
“Last night was probably the hardest night. I really realized —I’ve been shot,”Phipps said quietly. “I didn’t get to sleep until 5 o’clock last night. I ended up calling back home to my dad, my sister.”
His teammates are doing their part. Petty said Phipps has joined the Indians in the gym the last two days, “limping all across campus” with his “fake” injury.
“Them boys, they don’t even talk about it. ‘Stop walking like that, you’re not even hurting!’ ” Phipps said with a smile. “They keep me from trying to think about it.”
But thoughts of Friday’s tragedy filled Goodman Gym, from the opening moment of silence through the quieter-than-usual game.
“They all sit right over there,”Whittington said, pointing to the student section in the bleachers generally dominated by the football players. “They’re usually going crazy over there. Tonight it’s really solemn. People aren’t up like they usually are.”
There was plenty to celebrate, too. The 20th-ranked Tribe (16-2) opened the game on a 25-7 run, led by 19 at halftime, then sealed the deal with a pair of mammoth Brian Carter dunks with Apprentice poised for a rally.
Carter scored 18 points. Big man Alex Luyk drained a late 3-pointer to add to his 18-point night.
The efforts of his teammates impressed Phipps, who averages nearly 10 points a game.
“I was like, ‘Man, ya’ll go ahead without me,’ ” Phipps said. “I was wanting to try to clap for them, but …”
Yeah. But for that gunshot wound. Another difference as a college attempts to regain life-as-usual status.
Contact Steve Hanf at 704-797-4256 or shanf@salisburypost.com
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