20-year-old Wayde Sims was killed early Friday morning in a shooting near the Southern University campus. The junior LSU forward was expected to have an increased role for the Tigers this season.
“We want to remember Wayde, what a great person he was,” LSU head coach Will Wade told the media. “Besides the fact he had the best impression of me on the team, he was just an unbelievable person and was continuing to grow and had just done a great job building a bridge with our team.”
He is the son of Wayne Sims, who played in what many consider to be the golden era in LSU basketball from 1987-91. After Wayne Sims finished his playing career, he decided to stay in Baton Rouge and raise his family.
That fact must be doubly tough right now. As Wayne Sims has most likely watched the video of the fight that preceded his son’s murder, he must be sick that his son was killed in the place he knew – playing for the school, which he probably believed was his birthright.
He was the 2015 Gatorade Louisiana Player of the Year after he led Baton Rouge’s University Lab High to its third consecutive state championship.
So Sims wasn’t some stranger in a strange land. He was at home and knew the layout. So did his parents. The Sims family was famous in Baton Rouge so there was no pause about sending Wayde to LSU.
It’s the fear that every parent has when they drop their kids off at college. They raise their kids to the best way possible. They give their kids every advantage they can. Wayne Sims gave his son his alma mater.
None of that kept his son safe and that’s terrifying. I have a 7-year-old daughter. She speaks about college ofteand my wife and I are doing everything we can to help get her there. There is no goal more important to me in life than making sure my daughter gets to be whatever she wants.
The fact that I can do everything correctly, drop her off at college and have no control over what happens next keeps me up at night. And there’s nothing I can do about it.
LSU will hold a candlelight vigil for Wayde Sims on Oct. 2 at 8 p.m. in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
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