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Assigned Reading: Andre Dawkins returns to the court

dawkins

Duke Photography

Andre Dawkins’ college career got off to a great start. Enrolling at Duke a year earlier than expected, the 6-foot-5 shooting guard proved to be a valuable role player on a team that won the national title in 2010. But was doing this while dealing with tragedy.

On December 5, 2009 his sister lost her life in a car accident, with the accident occurring as she and Andre’s mother were on their way to Durham to watch the Blue Devils take on St. John’s.

The thing about the grieving process is that we never know its duration; like anything else all people are different and they address such situations in their own way. That was the case for Andre, who played three seasons at Duke before it was decided that he needed to redshirt last season in order to best take care of himself.

Krzyzewski publicly announced that Andre was redshirting, and the program would honor Andre’s scholarship, but redshirts usually participate in most team activities and practices apart from actual games. But Andre had nothing whatsoever to do with the team during the 2012-13 season.. “The main mission for him,” Duke assistant coach Jeff Capel told GoDuke.com recently, was “for him to get better.”

In a story written by Brandon Sneed of SB Nation, that process is addressed but not in the usual “athlete pours out his soul in an interview” kind of way. The story can be read here.

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