Virginia football player Mike Hollins related the events that led to him being shot and three Cavalier teammates being killed in an incident after a class trip in November.
Hollins, who underwent multiple surgeries and is on the road to recovery, told Ryan Clark of “The Pivot Podcast” what happened on that fateful day when a former Virginia walk-on senselessly started shooting. Hollins was wounded, another student was also wounded and Lavel Davis Jr., Devin Chandler, and D’Sean Perry were killed.
Hollins had gotten off the bus after it returned from a class trip to a play in Washington D.C. but returned when he heard gunshots.
“We locked eyes and I just felt so hopeless in that moment,” said Hollins. “I can’t even explain it. It felt like he had all the power in that moment, even though I’ve never been a physically vulnerable person ever…I couldn’t do anything. I knew my boys were in there and I didn’t know if they were alive or breathing. Once we locked eyes, it felt like all of that immediately went through my mind before I could take off running.
“I could see him lift the gun when I turned while I was running. And all I could do was pray. I felt him hit me in my back, but he was going to have to hit me more than once for me to stop. I was still running and I ran through and into a parking garage and I didn’t see him chasing me no more. I was still feeling like I was in a movie or something, and I had a bullet hanging out of my stomach…All I could remember was being on the bus listening to gospel music 15 minutes ago.”
You can watch the entire podcast here:
Hollins was asked what he would say to the shooter.
“First, I would ask if It ever crossed his mind how many people this would affect?” said Hollins. “Also, I hate to say why, but what would provoke him and what was going on in his life that made him think that this was the only answer. Knowing those answers would help a lot of people in the future not make the same mistake. I can’t imagine someone knowing that hundreds of people would be affected, that they’d make that same decision.”
Sadly, Hollins’ detailing of his story to the “The Pivot Podcast” is not without some sort of controversy.
Thursday morning, Clark sent tweets accusing “Good Morning America” of breaking a deal they had to release their interviews on the same day. Later, he spoke to The New York Post.
“I thought a show like @GMA would operate with integrity since they have fooled us into thinking thy [sic] care about things like truth,” Clark tweeted Thursday morning. “After what GMA producer @JennLeongABC did this morning I now know that’s false. Schemed, stole, & lied all to be first. Long as you win right? It’s crazy that @JennLeongABC & @GMA manipulated a young man & mother that have been through so much. We are so grateful Mike Hollins & his mother Brenda trusted us to sit down with him first. Still, @thepivot can stand on delivering every promise we made to their family.”
“We had an understanding,” he said. “We both worked together on when we were going to release it, what we could do with the clips as far as promotions, so there could be some synergy between their show and our show as to how we released it. Also, a part of it was they didn’t want us to release anything before they could, with them being a big-time morning show, and wanting something of an exclusive — which, obviously it was not, because we were not only doing it as well, we did it first.
“They’d agreed to hold it till Friday because that’s when we were releasing our show. We agreed it couldn’t be called an exclusive, because obviously it’s not.”
Clark, who works for ESPN, which is owned by Disney as is ABC, said he had a phone call later in the day where GMA execs tried to clear the situation up.