The Duke University Athletic Department lost a member of its family on Tuesday, April 3, with the passing of a junior diver. The student, an art history/visual arts major, was 20 years old and was found early Tuesday morning in his dorm room.
He was from New Haven, CT.
No details as of yet - so sad - prayers for his family and friends.
<p>JeepMom - How terribly sad. 
</p>
<p>A Rice student passed away this week as well. No details other than he was also found in his residential college dorm room.</p>
<p>OMG, I hadn’t heard this. <em>tears</em> This is just such a devastating tragedy for all concerned, and it hits WAAAAAAY too close to home for two reasons–my son is at Duke, and I was a diver in h.s. and early college. </p>
<p>My heart goes out to his grieving family, his friends, and his Duke family, athletes and others. Wishing peace and comfort to all who knew and loved Chris.</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2007/04/monetastatement.html[/url]”>http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2007/04/monetastatement.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.newsobserver.com/722/story/560616.html[/url]”>http://www.newsobserver.com/722/story/560616.html</a></p>
<p>So very, very sad.</p>
<p>Members of his dorm - his fraternity brothers - would not comment on his death? :eek:</p>
<p>Mini - I don’t know what you meant by the above comment. My son lost a very close friend to suicide at the end of his junior year and I don’t think he would have wanted to comment to a reporter about it right after it happened either. We also don’t know what the reporter asked them - maybe they were asked about the circumstances of his death and they don’t know what they were. I am sure that you realize that his friends are dealing with a very difficult situation right now, and we don’t need to make negative pubic insinuations about them.</p>
<p>“I am so sorry for him and his family. I have lost a dear friend.” You mean to tell me NOT ONE could open his mouth that far? I find that shocking beyond belief (and I had a former roommate murdered one block from Harvard Yard, so I know from whence I speak.)</p>
<p>I agree with you that they could have said something like that. But we don’t know what the reporter asked them. Do you deal with reporters in the course of your work? It is unbelievable the things they ask sometimes.</p>
<p>Doesn’t matter what the reporter asks (ever watch a Presidential news conference? :eek:) You say what you feel, in one sentence, and walk away.</p>
<p>I not only deal with reporters in my work; I spent 12 years as media relations director of a metropolitian human rights agency in a city beset by racial tensions, and as media director for a state board dealing with contentious issues (HIV/AIDS in the early 1990s.) And I’ve taught journalism.</p>
<p>Well you know a lot more about it than I do. I only talk to reporters sometimes, and I am always very careful about what I say. But that is not the subject under discussion here. We should return to the main topic, which is that the death of this young man is tragic and sad.</p>
<p>How people respond to untimely deaths IS part of the main topic at hand. It IS tragic and sad, and I’m shocked that not a single one of his fraternity brothers could say so.</p>
<p>Mini-</p>
<p>I’m sure you mean no harm, but please remember that these are college kids, not media-savvy professionals. And they’re college kids who had just been shocked by the death of a friend, and who may have been advised by someone at Duke to make no comments in consideration of the student’s family. </p>
<p>Also, I don’t know that ALL of his Fraternity Brothers were questioned. Do you?</p>
<p>My son is a Duke student. He called with the sad news and said that they didn’t know much beyond what was officially reported “except rumors.” And he has the good sense not to report rumors, which may be the case with the friends who had no comments.</p>
<p>Mafool</p>
<p>mini, you are WAY out of line here. Where is your empathy? 
It NEVER fails to be about an agenda for you. Not EVER. For someone who is a self-proclaimed altruist and and all-around good guy, you are severely lacking in empathy. Sometimes, it’s about OTHERS.</p>
<p>Excuse me, but I don’t see very much empathy here. I don’t see anyone asking why there wasn’t an expression of empathy. I don’t see why it isn’t expected that friends would act like friends, and express their sympathies. </p>
<p>It is SO devastating, and having experienced it myself, I would expect people to act like it.</p>
<p>There is so much we don’t know. It doesn’t matter what we know or don’t know, however. The family needs all the support they can get.</p>
<p>I think YOU are way out of line here, and knowing you just from what I have seen online, I assume and expect you would act differently under the same circumstances.</p>
<p>My sympathies are to the family, AND to his friends.</p>
<p>
Of course you do. You WOULD. Because I don’t support your agenda of using every tragic event to denigrate a frat or a school. </p>
<p>
Nice try, mini, but simply too little, too late. You have shown nothing in your above posts but egregious disregard for the sensibilities of all involved. Sympathy? Hardly. I don’t think you’re capable.</p>
<p>You might well have learned a lesson from your hurtful (and wrongful) remarks on the LAX thread. But you didn’t. Again, you want to jump to conclusions and DEMAND that people talk through their pain and their grief, even if there is nothing to say yet. I would ask that you please consider the fact that these people HAVE JUST LOST SOMEONE THEY LOVED. No one really GIVES a flip what YOU want to hear.</p>
<p>Sometimes, privacy is warranted and many good deeds are offered from the heart and not as a proclamation of one’s public greatness. I’m sure this young man’s friends have expressed their sympathy to the family privately. No need for it to be public fodder for CC (or any other) analysis.</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>I don’t want to hear anything. I’m sure the poor kids’ parents sure did.</p>
<p>I don’t DEMAND people say anything. But “no comment” on their friend’s death? From every one of them? You are a parent - how would that make YOU feel? </p>
<p>And I expect, in similar circumstances, you would have expressed at least SOME sympathy.</p>
<p>You are WAY out of line.</p>
<p>
You are perseverating, as usual. You’ve already expressed this sentiment.</p>
<p>Just because no comment was made in public from students at a school that has been REELING from the aftereffects of a VERY public set of events in which those who spoke early spoke FALSELY and did UNTOLD damage to untold numbers of people, that does NOT mean that nothing has been said privately. In fact, you have NO idea what sympathies have been offered in private, do you? </p>
<p>Would I express sympathy? Absolutely…but it would be FROM the heart and private, not for public consumption and dissection.</p>
<p>I have a suggestion for you. Since you feel that Chris’s family has not received the support and sympathy it deserves, why don’t you take the time you spend posting in a derogatory fashion HERE and write a beautiful, heartfelt note expressing your sympathy for the loss of their son. I’m sure your private gesture would be much appreciated.</p>
<p>I don’t blame them for not commenting, especially if they don’t know anything. I was at the Catholic memorial mass Wednesday night, and everyone there was very shaken up about it. :(</p>
<p>mini,
Does this make you feel better? I agree that your original comments were insensitive and out of line.</p>
<p><a href=“http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2007/04/05/News/Friends.Recall.Sanders.Smile-2825537.shtml[/url]”>http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2007/04/05/News/Friends.Recall.Sanders.Smile-2825537.shtml</a></p>
<p>Thank you, 1sokkermom.</p>