Dana Lee

ESPN.com • October 15, 2021

Betnijah Laney's remarkable yearlong journey from waiver wire to first-time WNBA All-Star

Betnijah Laney listened to one final apology and hung up the phone. She wouldn't let herself cry, not at first, but she was stunned, full of anger and uncertainty. It was June, less than a month before teams were supposed to arrive in Bradenton,...

ESPN.com • October 15, 2021

The remarkable story of how a teenage runner battled the legacy of Robert E. Lee

TRUDE LAMB WAITS in the hallway with the other speakers and, when she hears her name, enters the room where a school board meeting in Tyler, Texas, is being held. It's a sultry evening in late June. In the center of the room, a wooden lectern faces...

The Butler Collegian • May 3, 2019

Kyle Smith: In the bottom of the ninth

Butler baseball head coach Dave Schrage was in his car when he picked up the phone. It was June, and Butler had just lost to Seton Hall in the Big East semifinals the week before. Even with the loss it had been a successful season, winning nine...

The Butler Collegian • April 4, 2018

Butler cheer coach suddenly dismissed after 19 years and nobody will say why

The morning of March 26, former Butler head cheer coach Jamie Troyer was already planning for her 20th cheer season at the school — scheduling end-of-year interviews with cheerleaders and talking about future changes. But the biggest change came...

The Butler Collegian • March 9, 2018

Lee: Kamar Baldwin refused to leave Madison Square Garden without a win

Kamar Baldwin doesn’t like to lose, but maybe that’s not saying a lot, or enough, at a level where no college basketball player likes to lose. No, Baldwin really doesn’t like losing, so his options became simple. Baldwin refused to leave Madison...

The Butler Collegian • March 7, 2018

Butler basketball’s Campbell Donovan ‘just wants a jersey, not a number’

Give a smile an inch, just a tooth or two, and pretty soon it continues to spread until this happened — Campbell Donovan couldn’t stop smiling. There were still two minutes remaining in Butler’s blowout of DePaul when head coach LaVall Jordan finally...

The Butler Collegian • February 28, 2018

Lee: Kelan Martin is Butler’s very own defibrillator

Kelan Martin is the rarest kind of college basketball star. He’s a star too humble to admit it out loud. And please, don’t call him the heart of this Butler basketball team — the humility his parents instilled in him might protest. At least, not...

The Butler Collegian • December 31, 2017

Lee: What do you do when Butler beats No. 1 Villanova?

What do you do when the No. 1 team in the country comes to your school? You grab your friends, squeezed shoulder to shoulder in the student section, and storm the court, because they drove up, down and from all around — Memphis, Crawfordsville and...

The Butler Collegian • December 17, 2017

Lee: Butler wasn’t Butler at Crossroads Classic

The state of Indiana is guilty of many things — calling lawn games cornhole instead of bags for one —and putting too much stock into a basketball game, specifically this one. If all four basketball schools were going to converge under the roof of...

The Butler Collegian • November 27, 2017

Lee: Chris Holtmann built the Butler team that beat Ohio State

The Butler team that beat Ohio State last night was Chris Holtmann’s team before it was ever LaVall Jordan’s to coach. He developed Kamar Baldwin into a Big East All-Freshman selection, always giving one of his sideways smiles when asked about the...

The Butler Collegian • June 13, 2017

Lee: LaVall Jordan can do little to bring Butler fans closure

Closure is the final step of acceptance after a breakup. Every relationship, if and when it ends, needs some form of closure before both parties can part ways. Where then, do Butler fans find peace after the departure of men’s head basketball coach...

The Butler Collegian • April 5, 2017

Where are they now? Butler basketball All-American A.J. Graves

A.J. Graves watched from Butler’s bench as the game clock cast off the final seconds of his collegiate basketball career. There was nothing left but to pack up and go home, one game short of the Sweet Sixteen. Media members lingered, rewriting game...

The Butler Collegian • February 22, 2017

Where are they now: former Nike runner, Butler alum Thom Burleson

An extra stride here, an extending straightaway there — this natural compulsion to strike forward and watch the ground yield beneath his feet. Nobody was running like Thom Burleson ’74. His Chuck Taylors echoed patterns over the track’s surface,...

The Butler Collegian • February 8, 2017

Where are they now: former Indianapolis Indians CEO, Butler alum Max Schumacher

The high school baseball coach at Shortridge High School gave the sales pitch to Tony Hinkle. Max Schumacher was a solid local ballplayer — any chance he could get a scholarship playing for Butler? Schumacher knew the finances for tuition would be...

The Butler Collegian • November 9, 2016

Lee: Waiting for Chicago’s reign

I look over to my right, my sister in shotgun; her Cubs hat, still damp from the rain, slumped over her eyes. Not a chance. The morning is early and the road is dark, and I’m caught in the fading strength of streetlights casting a yellow haze over...