Playing in his second season in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, Panathinaikos Athens guard Paris Lee has seen his numbers increase across the board from his debut campaign with AS Monaco. Yet, it has not been an easy path for Lee to reach the pinnacle of European basketball, as he had to deal with tragedy during his college days at Illinois State University, where he played from 2013 to 2017.
In April 2015, he and his teammates were left in a state of shock by the news that Torrey Ward, their associate head coach, died in a plane crash that killed seven, including deputy athletic director Aaron Leetch. They were flying back from the NCAA Championship Game in Indianapolis, just over a two and a half hour's drive from the campus. Ward was 36 and a father of two, while his fiancée was pregnant with their third child at the time of his death.
"It was like 4:00 in the morning and [our head] coach called us to talk about apartments, because we were staying in dorms. We thought it was pretty weird that he would tell us to meet in the locker room at 4:00 in the morning to talk about apartments," Lee told Euroleague Basketball.
