USC women’s basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb suffered a bitter defeat Saturday when her team lost 79-51 to top-ranked team UConn. But after she walked off court, she weighed in on a more pressing matter: the deadly shooting at her alma mater, Brown University.
“It’s the guns,” Gottlieb said as she began a post-game news conference at the Ivy League school. “It doesn’t need to be this way.”
Gottlieb said she got back to the locker room Saturday after the USC Trojans’ home game with No. 1 UConn Huskies and had “a million text messages” from former Brown teammates. A gunman had opened fire during final exams, killing two students and injuring nine others.
“We’re the only country that lives this way,” Gottlieb said, her voice shaking as she noted that she knew people who have children at Brown. “Parents should not have to be worried about their kids.”
Gottlieb, who graduated from Brown in 1999, was a member of the women’s basketball team and served as a student assistant coach during her senior season.
One of her former teammates, she said, was flying into Providence on Sunday, because she had a daughter who had taken shelter in the basement of the library, and “she doesn’t know what’s going on there.”
Oscar Perez, the Providence police chief, said Sunday that a person of interest in his 20s was in custody. No charges have been filed, he said, noting “we’re in the process of collecting evidence.”
On Saturday, students and faculty spent the night on lockdown, trapped inside classrooms and dorms while law enforcement fanned out across Providence to search for the shooter.
“Hopefully, everyone is safe and praying for peace for those that have lost people,” Gottlieb said before she assessed her team’s game against the Huskies. “And that’s that. It’s more important than basketball. We can all be better.”
Brown University has canceled all remaining classes and exams for the fall semester.
“The past 24 hours really have been unimaginable,” Christina Paxson, university president, wrote in an email to alumni. “It’s a tragedy that no university community is ever ready for.”
