C L ASS of
20 20
JOSH BRODOWICZ SENIOR
He’d always yearned for the chance to help his team win a national championship. Now as a college senior, Josh Brodowicz wouldn’t even be able to try. “I started thinking about all the hard work and time I put into playing basketball—just how it comes to an end like this ... not be able to go down with a fight,” he said from his parents’ home in south Charlotte. “You just start running through every single teammate you’ve played with and every single team you’ve been on your entire life.” On the afternoon of March 12, the Royals were about to practice before a bus trip that night to play in the Southeast Regional of the NCAA Division II Men’s Basketball Tournament. Tis would be Josh’s, and his fellow seniors’, final shot at what had eluded them for the previous three seasons.
Te Royals won 30 or more games in each of those
years only to lose deep in the tournament—the most devastating defeat a double-overtime loss to Northern State in the 2018 national semifinal. Te 2019-20 team finished the Southern Athletic Conference tournament with a 24-7 record, and the players were excited about the chance to compete one more time. Instead, coaches summoned them into a classroom
and delivered the news, which left team members in tears. Josh, a senior accounting major, was on track to graduate in May but hadn’t decided whether he’d seek an accounting job, coach basketball or join the military. “You never expect a season to end like this,” he said, “but I’m excited to see where I end up next.”
20
MAGAZINE
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54
