Ashaolu recovers, still hopes to play for Dukes

The junior forward was one of five Duquesne players shot in the preseason.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Wearying of his long hospital stay and eager to resume being a college student, Sam Ashaolu was spending another boring evening watching TV when news of Miami football player Bryan Pata's shooting death flashed across the screen.
A look of disbelief on his face, the Duquesne basketball player realized immediately what might have happened to him Sept. 17, the day his life nearly ended.
"I lived and that poor kid didn't, so I can't get down," said Ashaolu, a junior forward who was one of five Duquesne players shot following an on-campus party. "I'm just happy to be alive."
And, he added, getting well.
Shot twice in head
The worst act of street violence involving a major college sports team injured nearly half of Duquesne's scholarship players, but the 23-year-old Ashaolu is making a steady recovery from two gunshot wounds to the head. One bullet was surgically removed, but the other splintered in two sections of his brain and may never be taken out because such surgery would be extremely risky.
For now, Ashaolu is happy to be an outpatient, no longer saddled to a Mercy Hospital bed, and he shoots and dribbles a basketball and lifts weights daily. He attends Duquesne practices and games, so involved emotionally that it's almost as if he were playing himself. At the Dukes' first game, he was seen walking nervously and cheering in a private box.
"The toughest part is sitting, not being out there with my teammates and helping them out in games," Ashaolu told The Associated Press in his first interview since the shootings. "I'm looking forward to next year, getting back into things. Missing out on playing basketball, that's the worst thing that's happened the whole time."
Now that he's back on campus, though not yet as a student, he is asked repeatedly by students about the shootings. He is polite, but clearly dislikes discussing the subject.
"I'm a quiet type of dude so I'm not used to all these questions from them," Ashaolu said. "I just want to be Sam -- chill out with my boys, be back in school and do what I'm ready to do instead of being a guy who got shot and is still living."
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.