‘“I knew getting that scholarship was very important to him for a number of reasons,” said Jeremy Anderson, McDermott’s freshman roommate. “It meant a lot to get that, to be acknowledged by the coaches for the hard work, and I know it meant a lot to his parents, too, just financially. It was a bit of a strain for him to go to that school, and his brother went to Cornell. His dad was a teacher or coach or something like that. They worked all their lives to try to get their kids through school, and they were pretty expensive schools.”’