Pat Narduzzi opened practice Tuesday in the same manner that marked his 10 previous spring sessions as Pitt’s head football coach.

There were the usual calisthentics, drills and meetings on and off the field, but Narduzzi walked around the Beano Cook Fields overseeing the proceedings with a heavy heart.

This week is the first opportunity for the entire Pitt team to assemble after the death of one of their own, freshman cornerback Mason Alexander, who was killed March 1 in an automobile accident in his hometown of Fishers, Ind.

Alexander, 18, graduated early from Hamilton (Ind.) Southeastern High School and enrolled in January.

“That phone call is a phone call that no coach, no parent would ever want to get,” Narduzzi said. “Mason, in the short time he was here with our family — he’ll be a Panther forever — we’ll never forget what he was, who he was. Just a tremendous football player, a guy with a ton of confidence. That’s what sticks (for) me. He’ll be with us for a long time. I feel and pray for his family and everything they have to go through. He’s one of us.”

Narduzzi said some players and coaches were in denial when they first heard the news.

“Obviously, put us all in shock,” he said.

Getting the team together Monday for a meeting helped, the coach said.

“It was great (Monday) to get with our football team again and bring them back (from spring break),” he said. “It’s always hard when you have a tragic loss like that, not to have him here, not to have our guys together to put our arms around them and hug our players. We are, as coaches, here for them to take care of them, make sure we listen to how they feel. We have great counseling support.

“How you deal with it is to talk with the guys. (We) brought them together, prayed on it. There was some great conversation.”

Yet, he added, “There’s nothing you can say to change anything, to make everybody feel better. Time heals.”

Narduzzi and his coaches also have met in small groups with their players. He said one player recently left a workout, walked to his car and cried for 20 minutes.

“That’s good. It’s good to cry. Men do cry,” Narduzzi said.

There is a memorial service planned for March 25 in Indianapolis, and Narduzzi said practice will be canceled that day so the team can attend.

”We’ll set that all up and get them out there,” he said. “We want to pay our respects. He meant a lot to this program.”

There are also plans to honor Alexander during the season.

Narduzzi said he has been with two teams previously — as an assistant at Rhode Island and Northern Illinois — when a player died tragically.

“You never forget any of them.”

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