Michigan State tennis player recounts lockdown after shooting originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
Tennis player Nicole Conard was one of the thousands of students at Michigan State University who feared for their lives when an active shooter opened fire on campus Monday night.
Like most, the 22-year-old frantically went into lockdown when she got an alert about the mass shooting on her phone. Conard, a graduate student at the university, barricaded the front door of her apartment, went down to the basement with her three roommates and shut all the lights off. She began to hear numerous cop cars drive by and followed all the reports on her phone.
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"Any noise heard was reported," Conard told NBC Sports on Tuesday. "So we thought that there were multiple shooters at one time. We thought dozens of people were being shot.”
Conard's apartment is located approximately half a mile from where the active shooter was reported to be at around 8:18 p.m. ET.
"He was on foot ... I don't think anyone was really safe at that point," Conard said. "We were really frustrated that they couldn't catch him for almost four hours ... Everyone was literally shaking and crying."
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Anthony Dwayne McRae, the 43-year-old suspect, was first at Berkey Hall, an academic building on campus, and then at MSU Union, a popular spot for students to eat and study.
According to university police, McRae has no affiliation with MSU and went on to shoot himself miles away from campus.
Conard graduated from Dartmouth College with a double major in psychology and government in 2022. Because Ivy Leagues canceled two seasons of athletics due to COVID-19, she was left with two years of collegiate tennis eligibility.
At MSU, she is currently working on her master’s in criminal justice.
"It really just motivates me to keep studying [criminal justice] and trying to make a difference because this keeps happening," Conard said. "This is the 67th shooting in the U.S. just this year … There's not much I can do right now, but … hopefully I can … be a part of the solution."
Since Monday night, Conard said she has had a virtual team meeting with her coach, who made Wednesday’s practice optional and offered different support resources for the team to seek.
While all sporting events are canceled for a 48-hour period, the women’s tennis team’s match against Marshall University on Friday was postponed to Saturday.
Other events affected include the men’s basketball game, as the Spartans were supposed to host Minnesota on Wednesday night along, with the men's tennis team, which was set to host Drake on Wednesday. It is unclear if these games will be rescheduled at a later date.
The women’s basketball team is scheduled to play at Purdue on Wednesday, but it is unknown how that game will be impacted.
The school also canceled classes until Monday morning, which Conard is relieved about because she typically has a class in Berkey Hall on Thursday night.
"It would be tough to walk in there in two days to basically the same classroom where all of that happened," Conard said. "I can't even imagine the people that were in that classroom for them to ever want to go back to that building."
On Tuesday afternoon, university police identified three of the suspects that were killed as Brian Fraser, Alexandria Verner and Arielle Anderson. Five others remain in critical condition at Sparrow Hospital, including a couple of Conard teammate’s friends.
"My teammate ... her friends were shot and they're in the hospital in critical condition and we haven't really gotten any updates on how they're doing," Conard said. "So my teammate is really shaken up. She didn't even join our team Zoom meeting because she's just obviously like really broken down right now."
Despite the events that unfolded, Conard would like to “resume life” starting Wednesday morning by attending a practice.
“I'm going to try and just go back to my day-to-day," Conard said. "As sad as it sounds, but that's just, that's just how it goes."
Above all, Conard says she is grateful for the perspective she has gained through the experience and the support she has gotten from people whom she hasn’t spoken to in years.
“It reminds us what is most important and to really value every second that we have with those we love,” she said.
