PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Two days after you would be celebrating a sixth win making you bowl eligible, Pat Narduzzi was emotional for much different reasons. The Pitt head coach opened his weekly news conference Monday discussing the tragedy in Virginia where three members of the football team were killed by a former player.
“I’m shocked,” Narduzzi said at the UPMC Rooney South Side facility. “I don’t even care to talk about that game. I think we put it aside. Our hearts and our prayers go out to the City of Charlottesville, the University of Virginia, Coach Tony Elliott and his football team that has to be going through it right now. I can’t imagine losing three guys in the room here.”
“I can’t imagine what is going on down there. It’s unthinkable. You go from playing a football game to that. Our prayers to everyone down there. It’s sad.”
Narduzzi said he met with his team, as he typically does, on Sunday around 7p until 8:30p to go over the game. The team then has dinner and goes back to their campus homes. He said it was probably the same scenario in Virginia before the shooting happened.
“Growing up, lost one player after a workout at Northern Illinois, lost my dad in ’88, that was traumatic,” Narduzzi said, pausing a few times to collect himself. “You think about what that Virginia football team is going through. That’s a brother in that room. It’s just hard, can’t fathom what those poor kids are going through.”
“It’s tough. We talk about being safe and surrounding yourself with good people. It’s unfortunate.”
Narduzzi said he talked with a couple of his players individually who stopped by the facility on their own during their off-day Monday. He wasn’t sure if he was going to address the team about it before practice on Tuesday. He doesn’t know right now what he would say but noted his has time to think about a message.
“We talk about it all the time, it’s more than just football,” Narduzzi said. “It’s faith, family and football and football being last. We know it happens a lot more with school shootings wherever it is, in Texas and Florida, right here at the synagogue in Pittsburgh.”
“You just got done playing a football team. The Davis kid, I remember seeing him after the game and saying ‘get healthy’. It puts things in perspective.”
There were questions asked about the upcoming matchup against Duke, but it just didn’t seem to matter. All anyone could think about was what Pitt’s previous opponent was going through.