You’ve heard the expression of “all this hassle just for a tassel?” Shaw University showed it was no hassle at all to send off one of its premier student athletes in style last week, as they presented baseball player Edgar Huff with his degree in political science, in the hospital where he was recuperating from injuries suffered in a severe car crash .
Huff was injured by a drunk driver earlier this month, and his recuperation disallowed him from participating in the university’s commencement exercises on May 9. Friday afternoon, members of the university administration gathered with Huff’s family members in Pitt County Memorial Hospital to formally award Huff his degree.
Obviously, Huff’s survival of a horrific accident is the primary and relieving story line, but it is also an example of a university doing the right thing by one of its athletic ambassadors. He was a magna cum laude graduate, and by all published accounts, a valuable member of the Shaw University community. It was the right thing for Shaw to extend itself in this way, and it should be commended that university administration had the thought and presence to see through what many institutions would be unwilling to even consider.
