Former NMSU basketball star Shawn Harrington shares inspirational message

Shawn Harrington was a star on the basketball court for New Mexico State, but in real life, he’s much more than that. He’s a hero.

And now, he’s returning to the Borderland this weekend to share that message.

Harrington was paralyzed from the chest down in a shooting in his hometown of Chicago in January of 2014 while shielding his daughter from two gunmen in a case of mistaken identity.

The former hoops star was taking his daughter to school one morning when two men at a stop light pulled out guns, thinking he was someone else.

“And two guys opened up fire on me and my daughter in the car,” he said. “I just pushed her down and covered her up the best I could. And when I was covering her up was when I got shot twice in the back.”

His daughter was okay, but Harrington, who went on to coach high school basketball, has been confined to a wheelchair ever since that day.

Harrington will be attending the NMSU game against UTRGV and 4 p.m. Saturday. He and former NMSU assistant coach Rus Bradburd, who authored a book about Harrington called All the Dreams We’ve Dreamed, will be signing copies of the book in the lobby of the Pan American Center during the game. Harrington will also be recognized during the game itself.

Then, they will be conducing a talk on campus at 7:30 p.m. that night at the Health and Social Services Auditorium.

Bradburd, who spent 14 years coaching at NMSU and UTEP, was the one who recruited Harrington to NMSU in the first place.

“We recruited Shawn at New Mexico State for the 1995-96 season. He was the leading scorer, led the team in steals and assists. He was our best player,” said Bradburd.

Harrington says his goal now is to one day get out of his wheelchair. And he’s shown encouraging signs in recent years.

“When the injury first happened, I couldn’t feel past my chest cavity, and now the sensation has worked its way down to my belly button. I can now control my stomach muscles,” he said.

And while he was always confident on the court, he’s even more confident about his ability to one day walk again.

“You’re going to be somewhere, and you’re gonna hear a scream you’ve never heard before. And that’ll be me getting up out of this chair,” he said. “But I have full faith that it’s still gonna happen.’