An Attendee Attends an American Affliction
There is no way that "Friday the 13th" is truly as bad as everyone make it out to be, correct? Wrong. On this cold November night of Friday the 13th, it seemed like any average day. Unfortunately, the day's big news began with the terrible attacks in Paris, France that led to the deaths of 137 innocent people.
On a side note, my mom and other people wonder why I refuse to watch the news even when it's "important". The news only shows people that the world can be a cruel place for no good reason again and again. The way I see it, everyone needs to sit back, watch some Netflix (and chill?), do stuff that makes them happy, and make the world a better place both in their line of work and in their surrounding community.
Moving back into the realm of Rhode Island basketball, everything was set to be perfect. For the first time since 1999, the Rhode Island Rams would FINALLY make a return to the NCAAs. The talent on the 2015-2016 team was immense, with a starting lineup of Jarvis Garrett, Jared Terrell, E.C. Matthews, Hassan Martin, and Kuran Iverson and a deep bench including incoming sharpshooting transfer, Four McGlynn, transferring in from the forests of his former Vermont Catamounts and Towson Tigers. If that was not good enough, URI received a commitment from former consensus 5-star guard, Stanford Robinson who would have 2 years of eligibility remaining when he made his debut in the 2016-2017 season.
Everything was good in Kingston; before the buy game against American University began, 5,000 people filled the Ryan Center, as they were all jubilant and genuinely excited for the start to the basketball season. Then, following the bad ideals of "Friday the 13th", URI's star player and NBA-level talent, E.C. Matthews tore his ACL in a gruesome fall after driving to the hoop 10 minutes into the game. You could hear a pin drop and all the air be sucked out of the Ryan Center as Matthews was lifted off the court and the season was over just as quickly as it had began. Ironically enough, I seemed to be the only positive person in the Ryan Center at this time. As people continued to get up and leave, I kept saying and truly believing that at the time, the injury was not severe and there was no way he tore his ACL. Unfortunately, I was very wrong and the tale of "Friday the 13th" persisted.
This November 13, 2015 was a sad day for America, the world, and the URI community.
