Staying strong
MATC basketball team reels from 2 tragic deaths in 9 months
Randy Casey got up Sunday morning, turned on his phone and saw the flood of text messages. No, he thought, it can’t be. Twelve hours earlier, he’d watched Will Kellerman score a game-high 23 points in MATC’s 92-90 loss to Rochester Community and Technical College. Now the Stormers’ coach was staring at his phone, trying to process the incomprehensible words on its screen.
Will was gone. Killed in a rollover crash Saturday night on the Hwy. 18-151 bypass near his hometown of Verona. Two hours after the game.
Casey was filled with a familiar dread.
Not again.
“We’re just going to stay strong. Will would want us to stay strong. We’ve got to keep playing. He’s going to be here on the court with us all the time.” Bryant Nolan Jr. sophomore at MATC
Barely nine months earlier, MATC had lost another player, D’Andre “Peanut” Morehouse, a freshman point guard with an effervescent personality off the court and a fiery demeanor on it. Shot and killed, allegedly by a longtime friend.
When Casey got into coaching, he never considered the possibility that he might have to attend the funeral of one of his players. But two, in the same calendar year? There’s no coaching manual for this, no seminar that teaches the X’s and O’s of handling tragedy and grief.
“Basketball is a team sport,” Casey said, “so I have to be able to support the other young men that are here. It’s not about me. It’s about them, and helping them get through this tragedy.”
This is the kind of thing that can cause a team made up of young men, 19 and 20 and 21, to collapse under the emotional weight of unspeakable loss.
Or, it can galvanize them, bring them together, make them better than the sum of their parts, even as they deal with the pain.
“We’ll definitely have our ups and downs, no question,” Casey said. “But I think it will make us stronger as a group. I think this group is special, and they’re going to give everything they can for Will.”
They did Wednesday night. Three days after hearing the horrible news, the Stormers crushed Western Technical College, 102-69, at the Reiman Gymnasium at Alverno College.
They played beautifully, sharing the ball, making the extra pass, getting up and down the court in the blink of an eye, slashing and crashing to the basket. The previous day’s practice had been disjointed, Casey said, the players unable to focus. But now they were in sync, playing with energy and passion and purpose.
Playing for Will.
“He was with us today,” said big Bryant Nolan Jr., a 6-foot-7 sophomore from Rockford, Ill. “I felt his presence. I got to crying during the game. It hurts. He’s still with us, though.”
Kellerman, a 6-3 sophomore shooting guard, had transferred from Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. The Verona Area High School graduate was on his way to visit his girlfriend after the game Saturday when his car left the road and rolled multiple times. The crash is under investigation.
“Will was a coach’s dream,” Casey said. “The full package. Ability on the floor. Ability in the classroom. A great teammate. He was just a great young man in all aspects that you can think of. As a coach, sometimes you have a kid that needs a little bit of an extra push here or there. He wasn’t that guy.”
In a few short weeks, Kellerman had bonded with his teammates. Fit right in. Black and white, from the suburbs and the city. It didn’t matter. The Stormers are a family, a team sports cliché. But in this case it happens to be true.
It was evident before the game Wednesday, when players wept openly during a moment of silence. It was evident when they walked past Kellerman’s No. 34 jersey, draped over an empty chair on the bench, and touched it. It was evident after the game, when they gathered around Nolan, who clutched that jersey to his chest and then lifted it above his head, in sadness and exultation.
“Will was a big part of our team,” said sophomore forward Jarreyon Johnson.
“He was our brother. When we were down, he always picked us up. He always had a smile on his face. He was always positive.
“It was extremely hard not to play with my brother tonight.”
There are tough times ahead, to be sure. The Stormers (2-1) are just three games into a long season. Sometimes, in those dark moments, the players will lose focus, overwhelmed by anger, overcome by grief.
“We’re praying and praying and praying,” Johnson said. “That’s all we can do.”
Casey will have to figure out the coaching part intuitively. When does he let them work through the process on their own terms, ragged practice be damned? When does he put his foot down, demand a better effort?
“There’s no manual at all,” he said, “and sometimes as a coach you don’t know if you’re right or wrong. I mean, it sounds bad, but sooner or later you’ve got to get back to normal for them, too.” They’ll figure it out. Together. “We’re just going to stay strong,” Nolan said. “Will would want us to stay strong. We’ve got to keep playing. He’s going to be here on the court with us all the time.”