USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb weighs in on Brown shooting: “It’s the guns.”
USC women’s basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb suffered a bitter defeat Saturday when her team lost 79-51 to top-ranked UConn. But after leaving the field, she intervened on a more pressing subject: the deadly shooting at his alma mater, Brown University.
“Those are the guns,” Gottlieb said as she began a postgame news conference at the Ivy League school. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Gottlieb said she returned to the locker room Saturday after the USC Trojans’ home game against the No. 1 UConn Huskies and received “a million text messages” from Brown’s former teammates. A gunman 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 trembling as she pointed out that she knew people who had children at Brown. “Parents shouldn’t have to worry about their children.”
Gottlieb, a 1999 Brown graduate, 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 to Providence on Sunday, because she had a daughter who had taken refuge in the basement of the library, and “she doesn’t know what’s going on down there.”
Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez said Sunday that a person of interest in his 20s was in custody. No charges have been filed, he said, emphasizing that “we are in the process of gathering evidence.”
On Saturday, students and faculty spent the night on lockdown, stuck in classrooms and dorms as law enforcement fanned out across Providence to search for the shooter.
“I hope everyone is safe and pray for peace for those who have lost people,” Gottlieb said before assessing his team’s game against the Huskies. “And that’s it. It’s bigger than basketball. We can all be better.”
Brown University has canceled all remaining classes and exams for the fall semester.
“The last 24 hours have truly been unimaginable,” wrote Christina Paxson, university president, in an email to alumni. “This is a tragedy that no academic community is ever ready for.”
