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Duke's Tom Emma (22) battles for possession of the ball in this file photo from January 5, 1983. Emma, 49, died of an apparent suicide after plunging from the 12th floor of a building in Manhattan, New York police said. (John Rottet/Raleigh News & Observer/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
We were poking around the Web Sunday, and we looked up Phil Henderson after seeing the Duke-Arkansas Final Four game from 1991. Henderson of course died young of a heart attack in 2013. He was just 44.
That reminded us of the sad story of Tom Emma, who was a Bill Foster recruit who helped transition Duke into the Mike Krzyzewski era.
So we looked him up too, and came across Jay Bilas’s eloquent article that he posted after Emma took his own life in 2011.
You really get a sense of who Emma was. In his era, holdover players didn’t always fit the new coach’s style, and you had to sit out a season if you decided to transfer.
Emma stuck around and while Duke struggled early in the Coach K era, Bilas notes that he was generous with the guys who were brought in, essentially, to replace him and the other Foster recruits.
It’s very much worth reading, or rereading, this article. We don’t know why Emma decided to end his life, but Bilas makes it clear that he had an impact that went far beyond his on-court contributions. It’s really a lovely read.
The end of it cuts off unless you’re a subscriber, but there’s plenty to get the sense of who Emma was, and how he helped the team when he could have sulked instead. He just comes across as a good dude. Losing people this way is just the worst.
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