The riots that gripped the city late last month were taking place just a few blocks away when Coppin State men's basketball player Christian Kessee received a phone call from his mother.
"She wanted to know how quickly I could get to the airport," the junior guard said.
Kessee said that he and his teammates stayed together on campus and vowed to "take care of each other and ride it out together," but despite attempts by coach Michael Grant to reassure members of Coppin's eight-player recruiting class, some future teammates made a different decision.
"The parents were very, very concerned," said Grant, whose team went 8-23 in his first season. "Some dealt with it pretty well, and a couple of kids we ended up losing because of the activity going on. They said that they didn't want their kids in that type of environment.
"We tried to explain to them that 'this can happen anywhere and by the time your kids get back here in late August, it all should be done.' But they just didn't want to deal with it at all. They know what's best for their kids and their families, and what environment they want their kids in."
As news stations around the country showed buildings being burned down, stores being looted and law enforcement officials engaged in standoffs with angry citizens, college coaches and athletic administrators from across the city embraced a variety of challenges, from making sure their current student athletes stayed out of trouble to reassuring potential ones that their campus remained a safe and sheltered environment.
'This could happen anywhere'
Coppin State, the college closest to the rioting that followed the funeral of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old man who died while in Baltimore police custody, was the only athletic department to report that it lost potential recruits. But all of the city's collegiate athletic programs were affected in some ways by the civil unrest that spurred emotion, uncertainty, and in many cases, good deeds among student athletes.
"Am I concerned about the long-term effects? Yes, but you can't really tell that right now," said Coppin State athletic director Derrick Ramsey. "We lost a couple of athletes, but nobody else has asked for their release. I'm always concerned about it. You want to get the best student athletes, but we're in a constant battle anyway because we're in an urban area. It certainly makes it difficult when you see the images around the country and around the world. It was unsettling, but I think our athletes did an incredible job."
At Morgan State, school president David Wilson sent a letter and map to parents, detailing the distance of the Northeast Baltimore university from the majority of the violence. Bears football coach Lee Hull canceled study hall for a couple of nights to help his players abide by the city-imposed curfew and spent time fielding phone calls from concerned parents and recruits.
"Obviously, the commitments that are out of state kind of don't know the lay of the land," Hull said. "I was very transparent when parents had some concerns. I made sure that they understood where we were located and they felt comfortable sending their sons to us. ... We're in a neighborhood where safety is not an issue."
Along with reassuring parents and recruits, Loyola Maryland men's basketball coach G.G. Smith called his players together to remind them to be careful with what they wrote on social media and to discuss potential safety concerns. He then had his assistant, Keith Booth, address the group.
Booth grew up in Baltimore City, starred at Dunbar and the University of Maryland and was drafted by and won a championship with the NBA's Chicago Bulls.
"We're still in an environment that if you walk two blocks from Loyola, it's a different world. We just wanted to make them mindful of some things," Booth said. "It was a very passionate meeting. It got emotional because it really hit home for me. I reminded them that they were very fortunate to be here, and to never take that for granted. I said that this was bigger than basketball. A lot of guys had tears in their eyes."
Booth said that the violence didn't negatively affect Loyola recruiting, aside from the staff having to reschedule a couple of on-campus visits. But Booth added that the rioting "does affect us. It's happening in our hometown."
Johns Hopkins lacrosse coach Dave Pietramala called the violence "sad and disappointing," but indicated that it didn't affect the program's day-to-day operations or its recruiting.
"I think any adult that has watched would look and say, 'This could happen anywhere,' and quite frankly, it has happened in several places," said Pietramala, whose team beat Syracuse Sunday to advance to this weekend's Division I semifinals. "I don't think this is something that is just a Baltimore thing. This is a national thing."
'This is temporary'
That's the message that Grant, the Coppin State basketball coach, delivered to parents of his recruits. Some of the parents were satisfied. But two members of his 2015 recruiting class — both of whom committed to the school about two weeks earlier — didn't feel comfortable enrolling at Coppin in the wake of recent events.
"I'm not going to get to a point where I'm begging players to come play for us. It is what it is," Grant said. "We know where we are, as far as our environment. This is a major city and a lot of things happen in major cities that are good and bad. You have to feel very good about where you are and what you're doing and if Mom and Dad don't feel that their kid is safe, it's going to be very hard to make that decision to stay here.
"But I wanted them to know that this is temporary and if they did decide to stay, we're going to be safe on campus and they'll be here to get a degree."
Kessee, a Las Vegas native who started 26 games this past season, said that his mother was watching around-the-clock coverage of the rioting on television.
"When parents are looking at it on television and think about their kids coming here, I could see how that could hurt recruiting," he said. "But our campus is very safe. Campus police does a great job."
In the days that followed, Kessee and other students and student athletes from Coppin State, Morgan State and Howard went to the areas affected by the violence to help clean up.
Ramsey pointed out that the efforts were planned and executed by students, not administrators.
He and Grant were buoyed by the student's response and the fact that the violence never carried over on campus. Grant joked that you couldn't have even found a discarded cigarette butt on Coppin State grounds after the riots.
"You can ask any coach this: you win some, you lose some. But we win more than we lose as far as getting players here because we have so much to offer on this campus," Grant said. "I think our arena is one of the top mid-major arenas in the country. When people walk on our campus and they see how beautiful our campus is, nine times out of 10, we're going to get those guys. Out of eight guys, for us to bring in six, I think we're on a winning side right now.
"I think we're through this. Now, it's just what can we do to make things better. Our next step is to get people excited about our basketball program and win and get people back on campus."
Baltimore Sun reporter Edward Lee contributed to this article.