Sports take break as NIU heals
On Tuesday night, the Northern Illinois men's basketball team earned its biggest win of the season when it snapped Akron's 22-game home winning streak.
On Thursday afternoon, nobody cared. Least of all Ricardo Patton.
With two sons enrolled at Northern Illinois, as well as more than a dozen de facto sons on his team, the Huskies' coach was relieved to know his players were practicing at the Convocation Center on Thursday afternoon when the shootings at Cole Hall occurred.
Patton was returning to DeKalb from a recruiting visit to San Jose when one of his assistants called to give him the news.
"There was a sense of disbelief among our players, a sense of unsure-edness," Patton said. "That's why I really commend the university. Every one of our students will have a chance to talk about their real feelings."
With Sunday's home game against Western Michigan postponed for at least a week, most of Patton's players have gone home.
"We want them to use this time to enjoy their families," Patton said.
That means Patton's sons Michael, a freshman who has a class in the Cole Hall auditorium where the shootings took place, and Ricardo, a sophomore, are ensconced in the house the family is renting while they build a home.
Athletic director Jim Phillips, a member of president John Peters' cabinet, gratefully reported that all 467 of NIU's student-athletes were accounted for in record time.
One men's soccer player was in the lecture hall, but he was uninjured.
"Several of our coaches had their entire teams to their houses last night just to feel safe," Phillips said.
Phillips called Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver late Thursday night to look for guidance going forward.
"He talked about some of the things they did for their student-athletes," Phillips said. "He was fantastic. I'm so grateful for the support he gave us."
There's no timetable for NIU to resume practices and games. Weaver allowed that Virginia Tech waited four days after the shooting before hosting a baseball game.
"He thinks at some point you have to get back to normalcy, but you have to take it a moment at a time," Phillips said. "That's what we're doing. We're not very far down the road at all.
"If there's anything to tell people, it's we just need your thoughts and prayers. That's what's making a difference."
NCAA penalizes DePaul's Stula: DePaul announced Friday that it will challenge the NCAA's initial ruling that freshman forward Mario Stula must sit out one season and seven games.
The NCAA's Student-Athlete Reinstatement staff handed down the punishment for the 20-year-old Stula, a former member of the Croatian junior national team, who was graduated from Decatur Christian last spring.
DePaul plans to appeal the ruling because, among other reasons, it doesn't understand the rationale utilized by the NCAA.
"Upon receiving the NCAA's initial decision," the school said in a statement, "the Athletics Department did extensive additional research and concluded the decision was unduly harsh."
The NCAA's reinstatement staff did not return a phone message left Friday.
Stula has sat out the entire season, in part because of an injury and partially due to the NCAA's initial decision on his eligibility.