Nellum Shot

Southern Cal star Bryshon Nellum was involved in a shooting.

Nellum was shot in the left thigh and right hamstring early Friday morning and underwent surgery at California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.

Police said Nellum, 19, was shot near the end of a party early Friday morning at a restaurant near the USC campus. Doctors said surgery was successful and were hopeful that Nellum will be able to resume his track career, according to Ron Allice, his coach at USC.

So what's with former high school Athletes of the Year, the name Nellum, and shootings?

At 2 a.m. on Aug. 2, 1992, Ohio State sprinter Chris Nelloms was sure he was going to die. He had just finished a two-hour training run in a park in his native Dayton when someone—no suspect was ever arrested—sprang from the bushes and shot him in the back. The bullet exited through the left side of his chest, after shattering his collarbone, puncturing a lung and severing an artery. Dizzy and near fainting, Nelloms, just 200 meters from home, needed 20 minutes to crawl to his front porch, where he knocked on the door before flopping onto his back.

Nelloms's mother, Gloria, answered the door and called 911. Had Nelloms received care five minutes later or had the bullet penetrated just a centimeter to the right, he would have died. Still, he lost 10 pints of blood. A vein from his leg was used to replace the damaged artery. A portion of his collarbone was removed.

(from Sports Illustrated, July 26 1993)

Nelloms, the greatest Ohio high school athlete of all time (yes, better than Lebron James) recovered well enough to win the 1994 USATF indoor title at 200 meters. He now resides in Ohio's Warren Correctional Institution and shall stay there for the next 31 years. Let's hope Southern Cal's Nellum has a brighter future.