CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — When a gunman started shooting passengers on a charter bus returning to the University of Virginia from a class field trip on Sunday night, Cavaliers running back Mike Hollins at first thought it was balloons popping.
Then Hollins saw the alleged gunman, former Virginia walk-on football player Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., and screamed at the driver to stop the bus. Hollins and two other students ran off the bus, but he soon realized no one else was following them.
Hollins, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told the two students to keep running, but he went back to the bus to help others, according to his mother, Brenda Hollins.
“His classmates are grateful for him because they said he saved their lives,” Brenda Hollins told ESPN on Thursday. “He was the first off the bus and told two of his classmates to run, and he went back.
“He said, ‘Mom, I went back. I needed to do something. I was going to beat on the windows because no one else was coming off the bus.’ He said, ‘I was going to beat on the windows. I was going to go on the bus and tell them to come on, get off.'”
But when Mike reached the first step of the bus, he encountered Jones, who Mike said was pointing a handgun at him. Mike said he turned to run, and Jones shot him in the back.
“The only thing he remembers is he tried to turn, but he saw him lift the gun,” Brenda said. “He felt his back get hot and he ran.”
According to Brenda, Mike said he started running toward a parking garage and pulled up his shirt. He saw a bullet protruding from his stomach.
“He got afraid that if he ran too far into the parking garage, no one would find him and he would die,” Brenda said.
Mike stopped, and a medical student who was on the bus helped him until emergency personnel arrived.
Hollins might have avoided being shot if he hadn’t gone back toward the bus. His mother isn’t surprised by his actions that night.
“Didn’t surprise me,” Brenda said. “It would surprise me if he didn’t. That’s who Mike is, so it didn’t surprise me.”
Cavaliers coach Tony Elliott also wasn’t surprised to learn of Hollins’ bravery.
“It’s the character that he possesses,” Elliott said. “That act is in you before you ever get to that moment. One of the things we talked about in his program is working towards becoming champion men. We talk about heroes vs. zeroes. And guys who set out to be heroic often fail, but it’s the common guy that does what he’s supposed to do in those adverse moments that becomes a hero. It’s the epitome of who he is.
“He’s the kind of young man that cares about everybody else. He had other teammates on the bus, and he was going back for his teammates. One of the things we talk about in this in this program is love, and what love is and what the highest form of love is. The highest form of love is sacrifice, to lay down your life for somebody else. He reacted exactly how I would anticipate. He thought about his teammates. He didn’t care if he put himself back in harm’s way, but he was going back to check on his teammates.”
Jones, who was a walk-on player on the 2018 Virginia football team, has been charged with three counts of second-degree murder and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Prosecutors have also charged him with two counts of malicious wounding and additional gun-related charges related to shooting Hollins and Morgan. He is being held without bail in a Charlottesville jail.
According to Commonwealth’s Attorney James Hingeley, a passenger on the bus told police that Jones was aiming at people and wasn’t shooting randomly. A witness also told police that Jones shot and killed Chandler while he was sleeping.
Brenda said she has forgiven Jones for what he did.
“I already have,” she said. “I had to in order to heal so I can help my son. I mean, I don’t have a choice. I have to, and then I have to move on to help my baby.”
Mike had emergency surgery Sunday night and another surgery Tuesday to explore damage to his kidneys and abdomen. Brenda said he has been taken out of intensive care, removed from a ventilator and walked for the first time on Wednesday.
“He’s recovering,” Brenda said. “Mentally and physically, he’s having a hard time. He doesn’t know why everything happened, why he was shot one time, why he is here and not his friends.”
Brenda said doctors wanted her to wait until after Mike’s second surgery to tell him that Chandler, Davis and Perry were killed. When Mike was intubated and couldn’t talk, he asked about his teammates by writing their names on a dry-erase board.
“We had to tell him that we had no information,” Brenda said. “We told him that because of the severity of the situation, it was confidential and we couldn’t get any information. I don’t think he believed us. He was throwing his hands up and had this look on his face, and I know he was saying, ‘Why? What do you mean?’
“We couldn’t tell him because we needed his vitals to stay where they were because he had surgery coming up. They didn’t want any complications.”
Immediately after Mike came out of recovery from his second surgery, his family delivered the devastating news that his teammates were gone.
“He was waiting,” Brenda said. “Right after they removed the ventilator, I heard him say, ‘Thanks, doc.’ I hadn’t heard him talk, so it was just a blessing to hear his voice. As soon as we walked in, that was his question: ‘Where is D’Sean?’ He knew. My daughter was standing closest to him, and he looked at her. She shook her head. She said, ‘He’s gone.’
“Mike’s cry was so deep it was like coming from his soul. It was like a cry I’d never heard before in my life. It was so deep. His cry was so deep. There was nothing I could do. I can’t grab him and pull him to me and hug him because he’s hurt. I can’t move him. It was like he was alone in that moment. We were there, but he was alone.”
Mike Hollins and Perry, a junior from Miami, were especially close. Brenda said her son said, “Mom, I don’t know how I’m going to live without him.”
“Mike, you’re going to live for them,” Brenda said she told him. “You’re going to live for him.”
Cavaliers coach Marques Hagans, who coached Chandler and Davis, knows that Hollins’ road back is going to be as much about his mental recovery as physical.
“Mike Hollins, I mean so fortunate to get away, but he’s got to live with not just a scar, but the pain of knowing he was on the bus when three of his teammates died,” Hagans said. “That’s not just something you move on from. He’ll always remember those sounds, that smell, that sight for the rest of his life, and that that’s a heavy burden to carry.”
Brenda had seen her son on the day before the shooting. She attended Virginia’s 37-7 loss to Pittsburgh at Scott Stadium on Nov. 12, in which Mike had eight carries for 23 yards. They had dinner together after the game, and then she flew back to Baton Rouge on Sunday.
During dinner, Mike had talked about how he was excited to go on the field trip to Washington, D.C. He wasn’t a student in the course on African American playwrights; he had been encouraged to go on the field trip by Perry.
Brenda said Mike had talked about how he’d wished they could have driven their own car to watch the play about Emmett Till, but Perry encouraged him to ride the bus. They were excited to meet other students going on the trip.
Brenda said Mike told her that he didn’t know Jones, 22, who was still enrolled in classes at Virginia. Mike said he interacted with Jones once on the trip, with each of them saying to the other, “What’s up?”
When Brenda’s phone rang around 10:40 p.m. Sunday night, she recognized a number from the Charlottesville area code and feared the worst. A doctor told her that Mike had been shot and was going into emergency surgery. His father, Mike Hollins, lives in Fairfax, Virginia, and Brenda’s mother is from Portsmouth, Virginia. They were able to get to UVA Medical Center early Monday morning; Brenda arrived later that day.
“I was devastated,” Brenda said. “Just walking into his room, I saw his feet first and they weren’t moving. And then I hear the machines and I just see him lying there. He was on the ventilator. The worst thing that I could have ever imagined to see in the world.”
Doctors have told Brenda that Mike will need months of rehabilitation during his recovery. He won’t be able to lift anything for three months. She said he is determined to return to the football field. He has at least one season of eligibility remaining; he didn’t play in any games during the COVID-19-interrupted season in 2020.
“We believe God’s report,” Brenda said. “The doctors can tell us anything. But Mike, he is driven. He will be back on the field. He will be carrying someone’s ball. He will be back. … Because he knows God and he knows he’s here for a reason. He was spared for a reason.”
Mike is scheduled to graduate with a bachelor’s degree from Virginia in December. His mother said he has to write four papers to fulfill the degree requirements. He is determined to walk across the graduation stage with his classmates.
“That would be a blessing,” Brenda said. “It’s a blessing because he’s walking with his three brothers on his back, and that’s exactly how he’s going to feel because he’s missing them. And so he’s determined and if he will graduate, he will walk.”
NEW YORK — Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said he discussed Pete Rose with President Donald Trump at a meeting two weeks ago and he plans to rule on a request to end the sport’s permanent ban of the career hits leader, who died in September.
Speaking Monday at a meeting of the Associated Press Sports Editors, Manfred said he and Trump discussed several issues, including concerns over how immigration policies could impact players from Cuba, Venezuela and other foreign countries.
Manfred is considering a petition to have Rose posthumously removed from MLB’s permanently ineligible list. The petition was filed in January by Jeffrey Lenkov, a Southern California lawyer who represented Rose prior to the 17-time All-Star’s death at age 83.
“I met with President Trump two weeks ago … and one of the topics was Pete Rose, but I’m not going beyond that,” Manfred said. “He’s said what he said publicly. I’m not going beyond that in terms of what the back and forth was.”
Trump posted on social media Feb. 28 that he plans to issue “a complete PARDON of Pete Rose.” Trump posted on Truth Social that Rose “shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING.”
It’s unclear what a presidential pardon might include. Trump did not specifically mention a tax case in which Rose pleaded guilty in 1990 to two counts of filing false tax returns and served a five-month prison sentence.
The president said he would sign a pardon for Rose “over the next few weeks” but has not addressed the matter since.
Rose had 4,256 hits and also holds records for games (3,562) and plate appearances (15,890). He was the 1973 National League MVP and played on three World Series winners.
An investigation for MLB by lawyer John M. Dowd found Rose placed numerous bets on the Cincinnati Reds to win from 1985-87 while playing for and managing the team. Rose agreed with MLB on a permanent ban in 1989.
Lenkov is seeking Rose’s reinstatement so that he can be considered for the Hall of Fame. Under a rule adopted by the Hall’s board of directors in 1991, anyone on the permanently ineligible list can’t be considered for election to the Hall. Rose applied for reinstatement in 1997 and met with Commissioner Bud Selig in November 2002, but Selig never ruled on Rose’s request. Manfred in 2015 denied Rose’s application for reinstatement.
Manfred said reinstating Rose now was “a little more complicated than it might appear on the outside” and did not commit to a timeline except that “I want to get it done promptly as soon as we get the work done.”
“I’m not going to give this the pocket veto,” Manfred said. “I will in fact issue a ruling.”
Rose’s reinstatement doesn’t mean he would automatically appear on a Hall of Fame ballot. He would first have to be nominated by the Hall’s Historical Overview Committee, which is picked by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and approved by the Hall’s board.
Manfred said he has been in regular contact with chairman Jane Forbes Clark.
“I mean, believe me, a lot of Hall of Fame dialogue on this one,” Manfred said.
If reinstated, Rose potentially would be eligible for consideration to be placed on a ballot to be considered by the 16-member Classic Baseball Era committee in December 2027.
Manfred said he doesn’t think baseball’s current ties to legal sports betting should color views on Rose’s case.
“There is and always has been a clear demarcation between what Rob Manfred, ordinary citizen, can do on the one hand, and what someone who has the privilege to play or work in Major League Baseball can do on the other in respect to gambling,” Manfred said. “The fact that the law changed, and we sell data and/or sponsorships, which is essentially all we do, to sports betting enterprises, I don’t think changes that.
“It’s a privilege to play Major League Baseball. As with every privilege, there comes responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is that they not bet on the game.”
Manfred did not go into details on his discussion with Trump over foreign-born players other than to say he expressed worry.
“Given the number of foreign-born players we have, we’re always concerned about ingress and egress,” Manfred said. “We have had dialogue with the administration about this topic. And, you know, they’re very interested in sports. They understand the unique need to be able to go back and forth, and I’m going to leave it at that.”
It was old faces in familiar places for the Atlanta Braves on Monday after they activated right-hander Ian Anderson to the active roster and signed outfielder Eddie Rosario to a major league contract.
In corresponding moves, outfielder Jarred Kelenic was optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett, while right-hander Davis Daniel was optioned to Triple-A after Sunday’s game.
Both Anderson and Rosario emerged as 2021 postseason heroes in Atlanta as the Braves went on to win the World Series.
Anderson, who was claimed off waivers from the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday, went 4-0 with a 1.26 ERA in eight postseason starts for the Braves over the 2020 and 2021 postseasons.
In the 2021 World Series, Anderson famously pitched five no-hit innings in Game 3 to lead Atlanta to a 2-0 victory over the Houston Astros. The Braves defeated the Astros in six games.
Anderson, who turns 27 Friday, was traded by the Braves to the Angels on March 23 for left-hander Jose Suarez. He struggled badly with his new club, going 0-1 with an 11.57 ERA in seven relief appearances. He allowed 17 hits and seven walks in just 9⅓ innings.
Rosario, 33, signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers in February and played in two games with the club, going 1-for-4. He was designated for assignment and became a free agent when Shohei Ohtani returned from the paternity list just over a week ago.
Rosario was the 2021 National League Championship Series MVP, when he powered the Braves past the Dodgers with three home runs, nine RBIs and a 1.647 OPS in six games.
Over parts of 11 seasons, Rosario is a career .261 hitter with 169 home runs and 583 RBIs in 1,123 games with five different clubs, including five seasons with the Minnesota Twins (2015-20) and four with the Braves (2021-24).
Kelenic, 25, was batting .167 with two home runs in 23 games and is a career .211 hitter with 49 home runs and 156 RBIs in 406 games with the Seattle Mariners (2021-23) and Braves.
Daniel, 27, made his only appearance for the Braves on Sunday with a scoreless inning and has appeared in 10 games (six starts) over the past three seasons with a 4.95 ERA.
Mike Sullivan, who led the Pittsburgh Penguins to back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017, is out as the team’s head coach, it was announced Monday.
Sullivan was the longest-tenured coach in Penguins history after just completing his 10th season. The 57-year-old, who also coached Team USA at the 4 Nations Face-Off, was under contract in Pittsburgh through 2026-27.
In a statement, Penguins GM Kyle Dubas said the decision was “the best course forward for all involved” as Pittsburgh navigates a transitional period.
“On behalf of Fenway Sports Group and the Penguins organization, I would like to thank Mike Sullivan for his unwavering commitment and loyalty to the team and City of Pittsburgh over the past decade,” Dubas said. “Mike is known for his preparation, focus and fierce competitiveness. I was fortunate to have a front-row seat to his dedication to this franchise for the past two seasons. He will forever be an enormous part of Penguins history, not only for the impressive back-to-back Cups, his impact on the core of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Bryan Rust, but more importantly, for his love and loyalty to the organization. This was not a decision that was taken lightly, but as we continue to navigate the Penguins through this transitional period, we felt it was the best course forward for all involved.”
The Penguins have missed the playoffs for three straight seasons as Dubas works to retool the team into a contender while Crosby is still competing at a high level. Crosby just completed his 20th straight season in which he posted a point-per-game scoring pace, and he was voted by his peers in the NHLPA as the league’s most complete player. The captain is under contract through next season on a two-year extension he signed prior to the 2024-25 season.
Sullivan was elevated to Penguins head coach in 2015 after leading the organization’s AHL team in Wilkes-Barre. With 409 wins in Pittsburgh, he leaves as the Penguins’ all-time wins leader.
Sources also said Sullivan is keen on coaching again next season and will be a top candidate for several of the vacancies. Sullivan worked as an assistant coach with the Rangers and as both an assistant and head coach with the Bruins earlier in his career.
