Lehigh basketball star Stef'An Strawder killed in Club Blu shooting
A promising young athlete died early Monday following a shooting at Club Blu in Fort Myers.
Lehigh Senior High School senior Stef’An Strawder was one of two victims killed with at least 16 others injured following a "teen night" event.
He was pronounced dead at Lee Memorial Hospital around 3:30 a.m., according to his mother Stephanie White, who rushed to the hospital with his father, Sylvester Strawder, following the incident.
She said the 18-year-old was shot in his right shoulder as he walked through Club Blu's door on his way to the parking lot. White said she heard Strawder pushed his cousin out of the way right before he was hit.
Strawder's sister, Sharrelle, 19, also suffered a non-fatal gunshot wound to the leg in the incident, according to White.
"Why him? Why Stef?" she said. "No matter where he went, everyone invited him into their home like he was their own. People loved him."
Lehigh administrators, coaches, teachers and boys basketball met inside the school gymnasium to grieve and deal with Strawder's death. More than 25 current and former players arrived for the meeting.
"We might not understand this now, but we have to come together and our faith will help us get through this," said former Lightning coach Dawn McNew, who resigned following the 2016 season.
Strawder was inside Lehigh's walls as recently as Tuesday, when current Lehigh coach Greg Coleman said the team held a weight-lifting session and an open run on the court. Fluid as ever, the 5-foot-8 guard wiggled through traffic, nailed jump shots on the run, and led with his play.
It was much like a scene a season ago, when Strawder, who had become the program's de facto leader following graduation to its point guard, Abed Abu-Khadier, was the catalyst for Lehigh’s offense during a 19-8 season. As a junior he averaged 15.6 points, 5.5 assists and 2.8 steals per game, pushing the Lightning to the Region 6A-3 playoffs. He was named one of three finalists for The News-Press Boys Basketball Player of the Year.
Over the summer, he was a member of the Florida Future Elite 17U team, which competed at the AAU National Championship Showcase Orlando over the weekend. Considered a talented player with great ability, Strawder had hoped one day to play college basketball. McNew had said Florida Gulf Coast University had shown interest.
"Everyone wanted to be like Stef," Coleman said of his senior playmaker.
Strawder returned from the AAU tournament Saturday and went to the school to train. On Sunday he went to church at St. Mary's Progressive Missionary Baptist Church with his mother, and then ate dinner with family at his aunt's. White said he hugged everyone and told them he loved them before he left.
Before he went, White told him to be aware. "I told him to know your surroundings. Know where the exits are," White said.
Strawder's Lehigh teammates were stunned that he had been taken from them.
Lehigh junior guard Jar'Tavius Martin, in particular, took the news hard. Martin was in Orlando with Strawder over the weekend playing with the Florida Future U16 club. He went to the school Monday for a workout, but by the afternoon he found himself on a bench, alone, coming to grips with a teammate lost.
"He was like a brother to me," said Martin, who along with his older brother Jarvis were two of Strawder's closest friends. "I looked up to him. He always inspired me every day. He always had a smile on his face."
Strawder's travel team coach, Mike Bonilla, was shaken by the news as well.
“I’m kind of numb,” said Bonilla, who was an assistant and interim head coach at Lehigh last season. “He’s a great kid. There aren’t enough words in the dictionary to describe that kid. He loves everyone.”
Parents also felt sorrow. Bernard Edwards, whose son Bershard had been a Lehigh teammate with Strawder the past two seasons, was among the closest to Strawder's family. His older son, BJ, had also played with him.
"I just think it really hasn't hit us yet," Edwards said. "It hasn't hit a lot of us yet."
Edwards had konwn White and Sylvester Strawder since grade school in Fort Myers.
"I met them at the hospital," Edwards said. "It was a sad, tragic, somber situation. And they're just going through it, like we all are. Stef was a special kid. He was a nice kid. He was one of the good ones."
Will Prather, father of one of Strawder’s Florida Future teammates, T.J. Prather, had a handful of other travel ball teammates spend the night at his house Sunday.
“The thought crossed my mind,” Prather said, of how things could have been different had Strawder been with them.
“Stef'An and my son have been on the same travel ball team for three years now,” said Prather, owner of the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre in Fort Myers and a supporter of high school basketball in the area. “I met Stef'An right when he was finishing his eighth-grade year and getting into high school.
“This is really going to hurt. The Southwest Florida community is really going to feel this one. From a very young age, he was a guy everyone wanted to have on their team. He was really the general when it came to running the court. He had great vision of the court. He was always looking out for his teammates. He was always there for his team. He had a great laugh. He had this infectious laugh. This was a good kid trying to get a better life. He was going to play college basketball. It was his dream. He was going to get out of Fort Myers and go on to a better life. He was going to make a difference.”
Club Blu shooting in Fort Myers: What we know now
The travel ball team is scheduled to play in Miami this weekend in another national tournament.
“We’re just trying to keep these kids off the street,” said Jamie Outten, director of Florida Futures basketball in Lee County. “And we were getting ready for our next tournament. But to be honest with you, I don’t really know if we’re going to go now.
“He’s a great kid. All the young kids in the program look up to Stef'An. They aspired to be like him. Man, he would take the fundamentals of basketball, all the little tricks of the trade. He would coach these kids. He’d show them how to do a layup. He’d show them how to play defense.
“It’s a sad situation.”
Teen tragedy: Fort Myers club shooting leaves a city in pain