"I am not an emotional person
or someone who reflects on
death or bad things," said Earl. "I
think about that night and Chris
a couple times a week. He grew
a lot when he came to Iowa and
worked his way into being a good
player. He was a great teammate."
Jan. 19, 1993, is the day Chris
Street died. To many, it is also the
day basketball died.
"We had a mindset to just go play the Michigan
State game because we had to," said Earl, who
played that first game with Street's No. 40 shaved
in the hair on the back of his head. "We were going
to go and do it for Chris."
After the game, Earl recalled an emotional locker
room.
"It was jubilation," he said. "You had some adults
and older people who had gone through death,
but I am not sure many of us at that time had gone
through any death that was significant. All the
emotions in that room… we didn't know what we
had done until it was over.
"We made a few plays, had some momentum, and
won that game. That kind of set us on track."
Earl thinks often about the events of Jan. 19, 1993.
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