EAST LANSING, Mich. — For a little while on Monday night, Tom Izzo wasn’t Michigan State’s basketball coach.
He wasn’t the voice and face of the university he’s been a part of for the bulk of his adult life. He wasn’t the guy charged with getting his team ready for a big week that was set to culminate Saturday with a trip to Ann Arbor for a game against its biggest rival.
In those chaotic moments that a gunmen opened fire on innocent students, taking the lives of three and critically wounding five others, Izzo was simply the dad of a Michigan State student.
Practice had wrapped up a couple of hours earlier, Izzo had gone to record his weekly radio show and his son, Steven, a senior and walk-on member of the basketball team, had driven to the Union to pick up his girlfriend.
“As he pulled up the police came running at him and told him to get out of there,” Izzo recalled Thursday night after Michigan State’s practice, its second since the tragic event on Monday had shut campus down for the better part of the next two days.
Steven Izzo then headed back to the Breslin Center, a place his father would have been if not for the radio show. Izzo first entered one of the suites at the arena before connecting with some staff members and holing up in the weight room and alumni locker room.
There they sat until the early morning hours of Tuesday when the all-clear was finally given, allowing the entire campus to breathe.
In those few hours, Izzo could do only what so many other parents did — stay on the phone, listen to the news and pray their kid would make it out safely.
“I kept saying I'm gonna go pick him up,” Izzo said, “and they said, ‘No, you can't do that.’ That was a little difficult.
“I just sat home and watched the news and listened on the radio and tried to call people. It was a scary time for everybody.”
None of that, Izzo emphasized, was close to the feelings of the parents and families of those killed — Brian Fraser of Grosse Pointe, Arielle Anderson of Harper Woods and Alexandria Verner of Clawson — or of those still at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing.
“In no way, shape or form are we feeling like some of those parents,” Izzo said.
Once he knew his son had sheltered in place at the arena, Izzo was on to accounting for the rest of his team and the staff. That came together fairly quickly and Izzo, again, had to resist the urge to bring them all together as the situation was still playing out.
He did bring the entire team to his house on Tuesday morning just to talk. Help was offered from mental health professionals. Some players welcomed that option. Izzo did, too.
All the while the texts and calls were coming in. Izzo heard early on from ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg, the coach at Virginia Tech when 33 people died in a mass shooting on that campus in 2007. He heard, too, from the staff at Michigan, including Juwan Howard, Saddi Washington and Phil Martelli, who has been a close friend of Izzo’s for years.
Izzo knew at that point Wednesday’s home game against Minnesota would not be played, and when it came to Saturday’s game at Michigan, Izzo said he never had discussions with any administrators about not playing. He said the team discussed it and believed playing would be a good way to help in a trying time.
“The game will still be the game,” Izzo said. “Hopefully it'll make some students here and some students there sitting at a local restaurant or pub or sitting in the dorms just to be together, to be able to cheer, boo and try to get back some way of looking at things in a normal way.”
The fact the next game on the schedule happens to be against a rival makes it a unique one. Early on, it was clear there was nothing but support coming from the University of Michigan community. The school announced on Thursday it is planning to honor the victims from Monday’s shooting and show its support in various ways on Saturday at Crisler Center.
According to a Michigan basketball spokesperson, the Wolverines will wear special team warm-up shirts, the pep band will perform Michigan State’s alma mater and Crisler Center will be lit in green and white during a pregame moment of silence.
Additionally, specially designed T-shirts will be worn by the Maize Rage, Michigan’s student cheering section, and student ticket holders. A “Spartan Strong” flag will also be displayed in the Maize Rage student section.
“It’s going to be an emotional day I'm sure for everybody,” Izzo said. “I greatly appreciate the support that I've gotten from the University of Michigan, the texts I've gotten from people, the way their university has stood up. … The world's gone mad a little bit and what happened here, it can happen at Northern Michigan, it could happen at the University of Michigan, it can happen at Eastern Michigan. It could happen everywhere and anywhere. I promise you this, whatever they're feeling it would be reciprocated if the tables were turned.”
Izzo’s task now turns to doing his job, getting his team ready to play a game. It won’t be easy. His mind will surely wander at time, which means it will for his players, too.
But he also believes sports are in the unique position of being able to unify people and help them process tragic events.
“In saying that I feel guilty because I'm also thinking would I feel that way if it was my daughter or my son?” Izzo said. “What I'm hoping is the answer is yes because we can't do anything about what happened right now except hopefully do a better job of making sure it doesn't happen again.
“But we can do something about moving forward because there's probably a brother or sister of one of those three that has to live. There's a mom and a dad. And hopefully there is a smile on your face, whether it's a Michigan fan being mad at me or a Michigan State fan being happy. Hopefully, it just brings everybody together.”
Izzo understands a game won’t change what happened. Instead, he’s hoping he and his team can be part of the healing process. It’s why he agreed to speak at the vigil on campus Wednesday night.
“I was overwhelmed to be honest with you, standing there looking out over that crowd,” Izzo said of the vigil. “That was one of the more moving moments of my career.”
And it’s why his team will take the court on Saturday night. They’ll have heavy hearts, but they’ll carry a responsibility beyond what the final score says.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to honor the people that were senselessly killed,” Izzo said, “and our way of being able to do that is to play the game.
“There will be nobody forgotten.”
