Slain Mercer player had heartbreaking bond with 7-year-old girl

When Mercer athletic trainer Brad Crowe entered his office after a basketball game last Thursday night, he walked into an ambush.

The 7-year-old daughter of one of his closest friends was waiting for him with a pressing question about her favorite player.

Molly Hamlin climbed onto a treatment table, looked Crowe in the eyes and asked why he had cleared guard Jibri Bryan to return from a knee injury that night without consulting her first. Molly had grown very close to Bryan the previous few years because the injury-plagued sixth-year senior spent so much time rehabbing his surgically repaired knees at the nearby sports medicine clinic where her mom worked.

"She didn't think Jibri should play because she worried he would hurt his knee again," Molly's mother Christina Hamlin told Yahoo Sports. "I remember her telling Brad, 'You didn't ask me if Jibri could play.' Jibri laughed when he heard that. He said, 'Aw, Molly. Thanks for looking out for me.'"

Endearing moments like that one help explain why Christina Hamlin's heart is broken Wednesday.

She doesn't know how to tell Molly that she'll never get to cheer for Bryan at another Mercer basketball game. Or draw Bryan another homemade poster to hang up in his room. Or take another ride on Bryan's shoulders in the training room.

Christina Hamlin doesn't know how to tell her youngest daughter that Jibri Bryan is dead.

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Bryan was fatally shot in the head Tuesday afternoon outside a convenience store in downtown Macon, Ga. Bibb County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to reports of gunfire just after 4 p.m. and discovered the 23-year-old Mercer basketball player slumped over in the driver's seat of a Chevrolet Monte Carlo parked in the lot next to the store.

According to the sheriff's department, two men pulled up at the convenience store in a white Nissan Sentra, circled behind the Monte Carlo on foot and both opened fire, killing Bryan. Authorities found one of the alleged shooters, 24-year-old Jarvis Clinton Miller, and charged him with murder on Wednesday. The other gunman is still at large.

Lieutenant Randy Gonzalez told Yahoo Sports on Wednesday afternoon that the sheriff's department is still investigating the motive behind the crime and will not comment further at this juncture. The unanswered questions only add to the shock for the Mercer basketball team and the surrounding community.

"Jibri was an amazing young man," Mercer coach Bob Hoffman told Yahoo Sports. "Nobody worked any harder to be on the floor than he did. He had all those injuries, yet he was always smiling and always upbeat. He was exactly what a coach would want. He never once asked me about playing time or complained about anything. That doesn't happen much anymore."

An honor-roll student his final three years at Benedictine Military School in Savannah, Bryan earned his degree in accounting after four years at Mercer and was on pace to finish his master's degree this spring. Five knee surgeries robbed him of the quickness and athleticism he had in high school, but he still found a way to contribute as a spot-up shooter and capable perimeter defender.

While Bryan played four minutes off the bench in Mercer's iconic opening-round upset of Duke in the 2014 NCAA tournament, he had his best individual season the following year. He appeared in all 35 games and averaged 7.8 points, 4.5 rebounds and 1.4 steals, helping the Bears to a third place finish in their debut season in the Southern Conference.

Mercer is 17-6 this season, but recurring knee injuries prevented Bryan from playing in 17 of the Bears' first 20 games. In his downtime, he spoke to kids at nearby elementary schools and high schools. And when he finally returned to the court last Thursday night, he sank five big free throws down the stretch to help Mercer hold off visiting VMI.

"This year, I wanted him to have so much success because he deserved it more than anybody did," Hoffman said. "It was so hard to watch him not get a chance, but finally he got back to playing last week and hit some key free throws. That was just the joy of the year for me to see him have some success and get to be part of a victory."

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It hardly mattered to Molly Hamlin that Bryan often didn't get off the bench during games this season. Their bond stemmed from his character away from the court rather than his contributions on it.

Christina Hamlin's role at Macon-based OrthoGeorgia is to serve as a liaison between the sports medicine staff and the physicians and to help facilitate orthopedic care for injured athletes. She has gotten to know many Mercer athletes through her job, but she spent the most time with Bryan as a result of his frequent knee injuries.

While Bryan offered Christina's eldest daughter advice on picking a college and always took time to joke around with her middle daughter, his relationship was strongest with Molly. The youngest Hamlin daughter developed a passion for basketball at a young age and frequently joined her mom at Mercer home games the past couple years.

When Mercer cheerleaders handed Molly markers and a poster board at a game this November and urged her to make a sign supporting her favorite player, there was little doubt who she'd pick. The sign featured a crudely drawn picture of a bear and read "Jibri #34, Go Bears."

"When Jibri saw that sign after the game, he said, 'Can I have that?' Christina said. "From then on, she'd do it every game. Molly would make him signs and Jibri told her he took every one of them and put them up in his room."

Molly always looked forward to visiting with Bryan on the court or in the trainer's room, but she especially enjoyed it when his two-year-old son was with him. They would talk or play for minutes at a time as Bryan and Christina watched in amusement.

"Four or five weeks ago, Jibri's little boy wasn't at the game and Molly asked where the baby was," Christina said. "Jibri picked up his phone and FaceTimed home so Molly could talk to the baby."

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When Christina first heard about Tuesday's shooting, she did not know the victim was Bryan. All the information that the police had released at that point was that a 23-year-old man from Savannah had been killed in broad daylight a few blocks from her office, enough to make her fearful that the victim could be Bryan or someone else she knew.

"The first thought in the back of my mind was Jibri," Christina said. "Then I thought, 'No. That's crazy. It's just a coincidence.'"

Christina intended to look for the victim's identity on social media the instant she got home Tuesday evening, but she forgot until she was tucking Molly into bed and her youngest daughter mentioned Bryan's name. Molly wanted Christina to remind Bryan to visit Mercer's campus store to search for a cheerleader's outfit for her to wear to Saturday's game.

It was then that Christina finally checked her phone and recoiled in horror at what she saw. She tried to pretend everything was fine while kissing Molly goodnight before shutting the door and immediately texting Crowe, 'Please tell me it's not true."

Of course it was true, and that reality began to sink in as the hours passed.

Christina's eldest daughter called from college late Tuesday night distraught about Bryan's death. Christina told her middle daughter as soon as she woke up on Wednesday morning. But Christina couldn't bring herself to tell Molly before she left for school. She said she needed a few more hours to figure out the most compassionate way to deliver the crushing news.

"I don't know how to do it that it's not heartbreaking," Christina said. "I have to figure out a way to tell her that someone she looked up to is not there anymore, and that's very, very hard."

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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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