Tim Benz: Ava Leroux, daughter of former Penguins enforcer, continues inspiring recovery at Robert Morris

Robert Morris women’s basketball coach Chandler McCabe admits she has a bit of a hang-up when it comes to recruiting.

“I’ve never really recruited height, because I’m really tall, and I really hated contact,” the 6-foot-3 McCabe said with a laugh. “My nose got broken three times. I was a long, lanky, skinny kid who didn’t love all the physicality. It didn’t matter that I was tall. I just didn’t want to get hurt. I was like, ‘I can get this rebound by just tipping it to myself without boxing out.’ ”

That’s not a problem when it comes to 6-foot-4 South Fayette graduate Ava Leroux. She is transferring to the Colonials with three years of eligibility left. The former Elon center, and daughter of former Pittsburgh Penguins enforcer Francois Leroux, has no such trepidation about contact.

“Ava does not have that (fear),” McCabe said. “She is physical. She sticks her nose in for loose balls even when she doesn’t come up with them. That’s something I specifically look at because I know. I know it because it was me.”

Even though Ava is too young to remember seeing her father’s brawn and toughness live on the ice, she has watched some of his greatest hits and fights online. Beyond what she viewed, she thinks there is simply a genetic tenacity to her game.

“For sure,” Ava exclaimed when asked if she buys into the comparisons to her father. “The amount of fights my dad has been in during his hockey career is crazy. My toughness, grit? It comes from him. … I look at how he had to beat out everybody and earn a position on his team. I look at that and look up to him. He is my role model.”

For his part, Leroux takes pride in watching his daughter play and her physical approach on the floor.

“It’s not like I told her, ‘This is what you need to be. You need to be like dad was.’ But she is a smart kid,” Leroux said. “It’s all her. It’s just the way she approaches things. That’s the kid you want on your team. Regardless of if it has to do with playing the game, being a leader, being a teammate, Ava has grown so much since her high school years.”

Ava’s intensity can’t simply be measured by watching her on the court. To truly understand that, after what happened to her during Christmas break of her freshman year, you have to know what went into her efforts to ever step onto the hardwood again.

On Dec. 22, 2023, Leroux and fellow South Fayette alum Grace Howard were badly injured when their car was hit by a drunk driver on Battle Ridge Road in South Fayette. The other driver was reportedly tailgating a vehicle in front of him in the opposite lane, attempted to pass, crossed the center line and hit the girls head-on.

Howard had to be cut out of the car and suffered injuries that have thus far prevented her from resuming her college track career at Coastal Carolina.

“It was an electric car. If we had been in a normal car, the engine would’ve crushed us. It had a front trunk. So it was open in the front,” Ava said during a phone call from Elon’s campus. “It was terrifying looking back. I cannot believe we survived. I saw a bunch of pictures. The car was destroyed.”

Ava’s mother, Lori, says the kids were just one turn away from Howard’s home near the high school.

“The car was going 74 miles per hour on a 40 miles-per-hour road,” Lori Leroux said, referring to court records. “He never hit the brakes. He never tried to turn out of the way. He was almost three times over the legal limit. Speed was a factor. Alcohol was a factor. It just didn’t need to happen. … Looking at photos of the car and the scene, they shouldn’t be here.”

For as unlucky as the girls were to be at that spot at that time, Lori insists there were “a lot of blessings” to how things turned out.

“We had just gotten that car three months before the accident. No engine. Every airbag went off. Grace got in the (passenger side). Everybody in our family is tall. The seat was pushed all the way to the back, and she never moved it up. So we are thankful that didn’t happen because she was already in the dashboard.”

At 6-6, 240 pounds, Francois Leroux’s entire career was based on the premise of protecting his teammates and shielding them from harm. But seeing the damage to the car and realizing the perilous condition his daughter was in reduced him to a sense of being helpless.

“It’s the hardest thing in my life that I’ve had to deal with. When it hits that close to home, you are basically flying blind,” Leroux said. “How can you prepare for something like this? You can’t. I couldn’t. Information comes, and what do you do with that information? The doctor paints a picture, but that picture is not clear because we aren’t doctors. We don’t know what’s going on. Then you go on the internet and start reading that (stuff), and you panic even more because all you see is the worst-case scenario.”

Ava ended up suffering a fractured ankle, a significant shoulder injury and brain trauma extensive enough that she had to endure in-depth therapy to regain her memory and regular speech.

“I’ve had to have three surgeries (two on the ankle, one on the shoulder),” Leroux said. “I had brain bleeding in the frontal lobe and the temporal lobe. There was shearing of some part of it. I still have residual symptoms of it. But with running and exercising, it’s doing well. So I’m glad about that.”

Ava missed the rest of her freshman season at Elon, rehabbing back in Pittsburgh. After three days in the ICU, regathering her cognitive abilities was the first step on her road to recovery.

“I can’t remember any time in the hospital. I can’t remember the accident itself, thankfully,” Ava said. “It’s hard to study. Plays can be hard to remember if I am looking at it on a piece of paper. But walking through helps me.”

Lori Leroux says at Christmas when her daughter opened presents, she opened them multiple times and couldn’t remember that she had just received them a few moments earlier.

Once Ava felt functional enough to leave Pittsburgh, she headed back to campus in North Carolina and set a path to get back on the court in the summer 2024. Eventually, Leroux was able to make her return in a Phoenix uniform against Long Beach State on Dec. 19, 2024, almost a year to the day from the crash.

“She ended up scoring. It was an ‘and-1.’ The team celebrated like they won a championship,” Lori said. “We were cheering. Screaming. Crying. We couldn’t believe what she had just done.”

SHE'S BACKKKKKKKK!!!!#TogetherWeRise #Higher #PhoenixRising pic.twitter.com/Jm2cQeer9B

— Elon Women's Basketball (@ElonWBasketball) December 19, 2024

As a freshman at Elon, Leroux appeared in 12 games, starting four. Before the crash, she averaged 5.1 points with a .466 shooting percentage and 3.6 rebounds. After her return last season, she put up 4.4 points, 2.0 rebounds and shot 48.1% from the floor in 21 games and 14 starts.

Now Leroux’s goal is to get back to being the type of player who averaged a double-double in high school.

“I think my game is starting to come back a little bit. The last couple games of this prior season I was doing pretty well,” Leroux said. “Conditioning can get better. But I’m managing.”

Leroux’s sister, Juliette (JuJu), is also a South Fayette basketball player who is being recruited by both RMU and Elon. She says witnessing her sister’s remarkable road to recovery has inspired her to be a better player.

Courtesy of Francois Leroux

South Fayette grad Ava Leroux will play for the Robert Morris women’s basketball team in the 2025-26 season. Surrounding Ava are, from left, Quinn, JuJu, Francois and Lori.

“She went through something 100 times harder than I ever could have imagined,” JuJu said. “Just knowing that she has pushed through the hard times, I know I can push through pain for 20 minutes. Because she was in pain for months.”

Ava suggested the decision to leave Elon was almost as difficult as the rehab itself. She and her parents gushed about how coach Charlotte Smith and her staff managed Ava’s return to play.

However, after everything she had been through, Leroux said she wanted to play near her family to finish out her college career.

“There isn’t a bad thing to say about Elon. The coaching staff has been with me through everything. It was very hard to let them know I was going to be entering the portal,” Leroux said. “I’m very thankful for everything they have done for me. But coming closer to home was something I wanted to do.”

The prospect of sharing the floor with her younger sister is enticing as well.

“She does have an offer (from RMU), and I hope she decides to come play with her big sister. But it is her decision, and we’ll see what she decides to do,” Ava said.

For now, Ava is finishing up her semester at Elon. However, she will be back in Pittsburgh on Monday morning for the sentencing of the man who was at the wheel of the other car. She and Howard and family members of both victims will read impact statements explaining what they’ve been through since the collision.

“The whole process has just been very long,” Ava said. “The sentencing has been delayed a couple of times. I’m looking for some closure. Grace is looking for some closure. I’m eager to have the sentencing. Just get it done.”

The date she is looking forward to more is the opening night of RMU’s basketball season this fall to take the court in Western Pennsylvania once again.

“I think about that all the time. Being surrounded by family and friends when I’m playing, it’s going to feel amazing. I’m very excited,” Leroux said. “I just … want to come home.”