Nicole Auerbach

USA TODAY Sports

INDIANAPOLIS — Seven months had passed since Samantha Smith said her final farewell to her husband, Andrew, as he died in her arms. Of all the tough days and hours and minutes since, this was a particularly overwhelming one — her first day of classes at Butler for the fall semester.

She attended her morning classes but felt herself submerged in sadness. So she went to a place she considers a safe haven, and also a place she can cry freely and openly. Smith walked to Hinkle Fieldhouse.

She found a seat in the student section, underneath the basket. A couple of current Butler players were getting shots up; Smith hoped they’d simply ignore her and maybe just give her a hug on their way out.

And then, for an hour, she cried.

“That is just where I go to feel close to Andrew,” Smith said, “knowing that he put so many hours of work in there and really poured everything he had out on that court. I love that place, and it was so special to us, and it will always be special to us. It will always be hard to walk in those doors, absolutely. But it's too meaningful to not walk into Hinkle.”

The death of Andrew Smith, at just 25 years old, after a long, public battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and later leukemia, hit the Butler community hard this past January. But it was only the first of a string of tragedies. Less than a month after Smith's death, staff basketball analyst Emerson Kampen’s eight-month old son died of a severe neurological disorder called Leigh's Disease. Four months later, one of the biggest personalities and brightest stars in Butler basketball history — Joel Cornette — died from coronary atherosclerosis. He was 35.

This stretch of unfathomable grief and untimely death would put a strain on any community. But here, at Butler, it’s also highlighted an unbreakable bond that’s been tested repeatedly, but never broken, during the past year.

***

Four days after Andrew’s death, Samantha Smith stood at the center of the Hinkle Fieldhouse court, microphone in hand and voice wavering. She told the Hinkle crowd that this Butler community would never know how much it carried her and Andrew through his illness.

“Thank you for loving my husband; thank you for loving myself and our families,” Smith said, tears glistening in her eyes. “The thing that Andrew was most worried and scared about was leaving me. He would ask, ‘Who’s going to take care of you? Who’s going to take care of my wife?’ With all of your generosity, you’re answering that question. You’re saying, ‘I am.’ ”

Andrew was supposed to be there that day, too. The game was a fund-raiser for the Smiths, with T-shirts and bracelets that read, “Stay Positive” being sold. Smith hadn’t planned on walking into that building alone just a few days after her husband’s death. But she said later, “That thank you needed to be said. It felt like it was non-negotiable.”

“That was just an incredible blessing that I don't even know that I could even fully express that people would understand how much that meant to me, just to be able to take that time to try and heal as much as I can before going back to work,” Smith said. “That was certainly a beautiful, obvious, clear way that the Butler community just truly wrapped themselves around me and Andrew both.”

And Andrew did spend his last few days blanketed by Butler — specifically, his former coach Brad Stevens, now the coach of the Boston Celtics, and former teammate Ron Nored. They were with Andrew his last days of coherency, Smith said. Many of the trips Stevens took to visit Andrew were kept quiet, out of the spotlight and out of the media; this one was so important and so time-sensitive Stevens had to miss a Celtics game for it.

Stevens and his wife, Tracy, checked in on Smith more frequently during that period than anyone who wasn’t family. The first trip Smith took after Andrew’s death was to Boston, to visit the Stevens family. Brad and Tracy still text and call often.

The entire Butler team went to Andrew’s service, a celebration of life that took place at a church in nearby Whitestown, Ind.

Current Bulldogs head coach Chris Holtmann thought it crucial that his players attend — two of them had played alongside Andrew — and that those who didn’t know him particularly well understood exactly what Andrew meant to those he loved. And how important it is to support your teammates long after your playing days end.

Brad Stevens delivered Andrew’s eulogy. Some 1,500 people attended the service, and countless others watched an online stream commemorating one of Butler’s most beloved players.

“He never complained,” Stevens said. “He was always a great teammate. He tried to help everybody else live a little bit better. And he taught us all how to prepare for our time.”

Stevens’ voice cracked.

“You did well, big fella.”

***

One morning a few weeks before Andrew Smith’s death, Baby Em had woken up black and blue, in desperate need of oxygen. Baby Em — Emerson Kampen IV — was then lifelined to the Riley Hospital for Children, where doctors put him through some tests. He’d missed some milestones that a sixth-month old baby should have already hit.

On New Year’s Eve, Kampen and his wife, Kylie, got the news and their son’s diagnosis: Leigh's Disease. At that point, Kampen didn’t know that most infants with this rare severe neurometabolic disorder die by the age of three. He soon learned.

While trying to process his son’s terminal diagnosis, Emerson realized he would at some point have to tell the current Butler team, which included Roosevelt Jones and Kellen Dunham — two players who had been Kampen’s teammates during his career as a forward at Butler.

“It’s one of those things that when you're going through it, you're kind of on this roller coaster ride and you don't want everybody to feel your pain,” Kampen said. “You know, you want them to know what's going on, and, Why is EK not around as much? Or why is he in and out? But they took it really hard.”

Both Jones and Dunham bawled, tears they said they didn’t realize they still had left after Smith’s death. Kampen had played with Smith all four years, too. Both were part of the national finalist teams in 2010 and 2011.

Baby Em died Feb. 1. He was eight months old, and the family decided not to have a service for him. In his room in the Kampen home is a custom Boston Celtics jersey from Stevens with “Em” and Kampen’s Butler jersey number across the back. Butler’s game ball from the Georgetown game — the one the Bulldogs played the day after Em died — sits in his crib.

“We haven't messed with his stuff,” Kampen said. “My wife is like, ‘It's his stuff forever.’ ”

Holtmann, who had taken the reins of the Butler program after Brandon Miller had taken a medical leave of absence in October 2014, had trouble coming to terms with what Kampen and Kylie were going through.

“All they wanted to do was have a family,” Holtmann said. “He comes in and says, ‘Hey, my son has a terminal illness.’ His son passes away a month later, and it's hard for them to even function after that. It jolts you. … We'll never lose the connection that our staff has (created) in these two years. We won't ever lose it —because in some ways all we had was each other.”

And the rest of the Butler community. Which makes Kampen think back to the teams he played on that came so close to winning it all.

“It’s miserable losing a national championship; at the time you think that’s the worst thing that’s ever going to happen,” Kampen said. “But I think it builds a strong relationship. … It was a little bit of a blessing in disguise. Losing those games brought us closer together as a family. The amount of people that reached out to me and Kylie, it was incredible.”

“Everywhere you walk in, everybody would say they have a great family. They might I don't know, but I know that this place is a little bit different.”

The night after Baby Em died, Joel Cornette tweeted that his prayers were with Kampen and his family.

“No parent should ever have to lose a child,” he wrote. “A tough year gets tougher for our @ButlerMBB family.”

And then the Butler basketball family lost Cornette. Early in the morning of August 16, one of the players who helped fuel Butler’s rise from typical mid-major to national basketball brand died from coronary atherosclerosis at age 35. Cornette had not had any previous heart complications.

***

Jordan Cornette had just lost his best friend and brother — Joey to him, Joel to everyone else — and realized, quite quickly, he was now the eldest son of the family. He’d need to step up and help plan Joel’s funeral. He’d have to provide strength for his family.

“It feels like the bottom has fallen out underneath you,” he said. “I was spiraling. … But with the funeral, the first thing my mother said in regards to that was, ‘Well, we know where Joey's hallowed ground was — it was Butler. My mom immediately said she wanted to do the whole thing at Hinkle Fieldhouse.”

Butler’s fall semester had just started, and the Cornette family wasn’t sure it would be feasible. A call to Holtmann took care of everything. “I don't care what we have going on,” Holtmann told the Cornettes. “If we have to move stuff around, whatever day you want to do it, we'll make it happen.”

Jordan Cornette then called Stevens and asked him to be a pallbearer; Stevens agreed, then surprised him by telling him of plans he’d already been making to organize a gathering of Joel’s teammates for the night before the funeral — with food, drinks and stories about Joel and what he meant to everyone.

“He said Joel's meant so much to our program and so all these guys, he was the tie that binded them and he wanted to get everybody together,” Cornette said. “This is the head coach of the Celtics, for an NBA season, and he's saying, ‘Not only would I love to be a pallbearer and oh, by the way, my family has a trip out west that's been canceled, we'll be there,’ he's also putting together something the night before.

“Brad Stevens, how easy could it be for the guy to forget Butler? He is now a coach at a place where everyone dreams of being, but he has never forgotten. He surely didn't forget my family when all this happened.”

Neither did Joel’s old teammates, who flew in from all over. Some, like LaVall Jordan, were head coaches working in different states. Others, like Thomas Jackson, were still playing overseas. Jordan doesn’t think there was a single teammate from any of Joel’s teams — even his freshman season — who wasn’t there.

And they all checked in on Jordan Cornette. They still do. As they gathered the night before Joel’s service, old teammates shared stories and laughter. Jordan listened, understanding how his older brother had connected classes and even eras of Butler basketball to one another. The current Bulldogs, who all attended Joel’s service the next day, learned that, too.

“There were numerous stories where people are saying post-college something bad happens — someone's wife comes down with cancer, someone's mom isn't doing well — he's the first one to call,” current senior Andrew Chrabascz said. “As a senior, I want to make sure everyone's close in the locker room but not just in the locker room, outside the locker room. We're hanging out. We're, like you said, a close knit family. It's not just a cliché we're saying in huddles, ‘It's family.’ We actually want to be that.

“Joel represented that beautifully as a captain on his team.”

Jordan Cornette had played college basketball at Notre Dame, and his teams had the same goals. But this felt different, in a moment that went beyond basketball.

“As proud as I am to say I played at Notre Dame, it's almost hard not to root for Butler above everybody else for how they rallied around my family,” he said. “I can tell you this, and I'm not just saying this to wax poetic: There is no program like Butler, and I know teams have lost players and family members have lost people involved in programs. I don't think there is another program that would go to the great lengths Butler would to take care of their own. It just blew me away.

“I think it's one thing to commit to a program and say you're going to play basketball there, and you hope the program looks after you after you leave, but when you're a part of Butler, you're a part of that place forever. They look after you like you're their own. … It's really like joining some sort of tribe that is very special, and you understand when you join that group that there is a weighted responsibility of carrying on.”

It continues to the present day. The school has established a scholarship in Joel’s name. Avery Woodson, a transfer from Memphis, was supposed to wear No. 33 — Joel’s old jersey number — this season. So moved by the night-before gathering and the funeral service, Woodson decided not to, in order to honor Joel. He’ll wear No. 0 instead.

***

Samantha Smith made sure she attended Joel Cornette’s service at Hinkle. She felt she had to be there, for those who had been there for her.

No matter how difficult it was going to be.

“I was very intentional about not having Andrew’s funeral there just because I couldn't not — I couldn't handle that,” Samantha said. “It was hard to walk into another funeral at Hinkle and for it to be Joel Cornette, who was such a kind man, such an upstanding man. It was a punch in the gut. I remember sitting there, and I literally sat and cried the entire time and just thought, I couldn't get it together. I could not stop. I just couldn't get it together. In hindsight, I think maybe that was too much.

“But again it meant too much to not go. Joel meant too much to our community.”

So had Andrew. So had Baby Em. And all those who came before and all those who will come after. In bad times, as they’ve experienced, and the surely better times to come.

As insignificant as it seems sometimes, perhaps the basketball itself can help the with the healing.

“We’re looking for some good fortune, and hopefully that means winning a bunch of games and winning the Big East this year,” Kampen said. “I know this: We’ve got a whole bunch of cheerleaders that are up there (in heaven).

"If anybody can impact the game it’ll be Joel, Andrew and Em.”