USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb weighs in on Brown’s shooting: ‘The problem was the gun.’
USC women’s basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb suffered a tough loss on Saturday as her team fell to No. 1 UConn, 79-51. But after she left the courtroom, she addressed a more pressing issue: fatal shooting at her alma mater, Brown University.
“It’s the gun,” Gottlieb said as he began a postgame news conference at the Ivy League school. “It doesn’t need to be this way.”
Gottlieb said she returned to the locker room after the USC Trojans’ home game against the top-ranked UConn Huskies on Saturday and received “a million texts” from former Brown teammates. A gunman opened fire during final exams, killing two students and injuring nine others.
“We’re the only country that lives like this,” Gottlieb said, her voice shaking as she pointed out people she knew who had children who were college students at Brown. “Parents shouldn’t have to worry about their children.”
Gottlieb graduated from Brown University in 1999, where she was a member of the women’s basketball team and served as a student assistant coach during her senior season.
She said one of her former teammates flew to Providence on Sunday because she had a daughter who had taken refuge in the library’s basement and “she had no idea what was going on there.”
Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez said Sunday that a suspect in his 20s was in custody. No charges have been filed, he said, noting “we are gathering evidence.”
Students and staff were trapped inside classrooms and dormitories on Saturday and remained on lockdown overnight while law enforcement searched for the shooter across Providence.
“Hopefully everyone is safe and praying for peace for those who have lost loved ones,” Gottlieb said before assessing her team’s game against the Huskies. “That’s it. This is bigger than basketball. We can all get better.”
Brown University has canceled all remaining classes and exams for the fall semester.
“The past 24 hours have truly been unimaginable,” University President Christina Paxson wrote in an email to alumni. “This is a tragedy for which no university community was prepared.”
