Watching Ball State University's football team during the past four weeks, T.I.S. store manager Pam Suminski planned to sell Cardinal T-shirts to feed the growing excitement among the student body.
Then Ball State receiver Dante Love suffered a devastating injury, and her plans changed.
When Love was injured with a cervical spine fracture last weekend at Indiana University, Suminski thought of ways she could help out one of Ball State's most famous students. After speaking to one of her employees, Suminski decided to sell T-shirts and send all proceeds to the recently created Dante Love Medical and Rehabilitation Fund at MutualBank.
"We benefit directly from the student body of the university," Suminski said. "So to not do something, I just don't think would've been right at all to ignore this."
Athletics director Tom Collins announced Friday that Love's family will not have to pay for any medical bills from his time at Bloomington or Methodist hospitals. The insurance policies will also cover charges incurred by Love's time at a rehabilitation center in Indianapolis.
The university will pay the first $75,000, Collins said. After that cap has been reached, Collins said, the NCAA has a Catastrophic Policy that will cover the remainder of Love's medical expenses.
"The family is going to have some expenses in this process here," Collins said. "But everything with Dante, until he is released, is all covered by insurance. Until he gets done with rehab, that's all covered by Ball State and the NCAA."
Collins said the two insurance policies do not cover non-medical expenses, such as the gas and hotel costs Love's family will spend while he recovers. Collins set up the Dante Love Medical and Rehabilitation Fund at MutualBank so Love's family would not suffer financially as the senior recovered from his injury.
"As we figured out what things aren't covered by insurance, we went about internally to make sure things would still be covered," Collins said.
Before granting T.I.S. permission to sell the shirts, Collins talked with NCAA officials to ensure no regulations would be violated in giving Love's family financial aid. Officials verified Friday that his plan was OK, and Ball State's athletics department notified T.I.S. shortly after that it could begin selling the 500 "Dante Love" T-shirts it ordered Tuesday.
Collins said he hadn't heard of any other stores selling Love T-shirts for the fund, but he said he discourages it because there are strict NCAA regulations regarding money that goes to student-athletes.
Suminski said T.I.S. has been receiving "nonstop phone calls" from students inquiring about the Love shirts. She said students waited for more than an hour to buy a shirt.
Each shirt costs $9.95, Suminski said, and the profit for each shirt will be $5.70. She said her store sent the Cardinals' athletics department one shirt for Love and another for his girlfriend.
Suminski said she hopes to see hundreds of students wearing the Love T-shirts on Saturday when Ball State plays Kent State at noon.
"We're just hoping for a very speedy recovery for Dante," she said. "We're looking forward to seeing him back on campus again. And we hope his family is comfortably able to move on from his rehabilitation."
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