After Thanksgiving break, the Blackburn College women’s basketball team found that someone had broken into their locker room and stolen athletic gear. The team had been in Chicago on Friday, Nov. 18, and Saturday, Nov. 19, the week of the break-in, which means it occured on Sunday, Nov. 20 or Monday, Nov. 21. This is unusual because both the men’s and women’s locker rooms are locked when not in use. Director of Campus Safety Morrie Fraser said, “We aren’t sure yet. Everything is really up in the air right now. We were unable to find anything that would indicate a forced entry. It is possible that the doors to the locker room weren’t locked but it’s also possible they were locked and there is a key floating around.” Blackburn staff with access to the locker room keys include those involved in athletic training, some people in the athletics department, campus services and possibly security and campus maintenance departments.
The items stolen include basketball shoes, sports bras and jerseys. Fraser said, “It’s definitely possible with the price of sneakers that $1,500 worth of items were stolen.” Freshman sports psychology major Alexia Duncan who is the team’s point guard said, “I had my basketball shoes stolen from me, they were around $100. I think the whole situation is ridiculous because people work hard for their stuff and for someone to just come in and take it is just unbelievable.” Junior biology major Candace Pollock had a pair of $200 Nike Hyperdunk shoes stolen and was similarly outraged. “The whole situation is absolute bull**it,” said Pollock. “The campus security is overall garbage. We have no secure anything. We need to keep better track of keys if that’s the security we are going to use. The locks on the locker rooms at this point should be switched out because players should not be afraid to leave their equipment in their lockers.” Since Pollock made this statement Fraser confirmed that the locks have been changed.
Several of the women believe the college should try a bit harder to protect the player’s belongings. “Ensuring that your players have their equipment to play should be a prime concern,” Pollock said. “Athletic teams have been striving to make Blackburn look better, have better seasons, but that won’t happen when we have lack of equipment to play in. Not only that, but it sucks knowing someone on this campus would do something like that to its own players.” Other players like freshman kinesiology major Lauryn Jackson are just disappointed that someone on campus would steal from the basketball team in the first place. “My mom is a two-time cancer survivor and is at a high risk of developing breast cancer so she constantly has a million things to worry about and now on top of it, she has to figure out how to get me new shoes and gear to play,” she said.
If you have any information that could help the basketball team track down their stolen equipment, or have a tip as to whom the culprit may be, please contact Fraser at morrison.fraser@blackburn.edu or head women’s basketball coach Katie Fonseca at katie.fonseca@blackburn.edu.