Najee Hardaway remembered for impact at Wooster, Shaker Heights

My heartfelt condolences go out to the family and friends of Najee Hardaway.

Hardaway, a former College of Wooster basketball standout, passed away May 25 at age 26. According to several Cleveland media outlets, he was killed in a car crash. He was a fourth grade teacher at Lomond Elementary School in Shaker Heights.

I had the opportunity to interview Hardaway several times and watched him play many basketball games.

Hardaway had a team-first attitude on the court and an electric smile. It wasn’t hard to tell he was special.

He was an outstanding young man on and off the court. He was great with younger kids, even while in college, working with a couple of area players.

It’s incredibly sad to think about what a great life the Shaker Heights native would have led in the decades to come and how many more people he would have influenced in a positive way.

Hardaway started his COW career playing under Hall of Fame coach Steve Moore and then Doug Cline after the latter took over for his retired mentor.

Reached by phone May 28, Cline said Hardaway’s passing is a huge loss for Wooster basketball, The College of Wooster community and Shaker Heights, where he was from and now a teacher.

"Najee impacted so many people while he was here at Wooster, and he continued to stay connected. He was a special, special person. It didn’t matter if he had just met you or known you for a long time. He was going to treat you with respect. It really didn’t matter who you were,” Cline said.

As a senior at Shaker Heights, Hardaway played a key role in leading the Red Raiders boys basketball team to a district championship.

Hardaway went on to continue his basketball career at Wooster, where he averaged 8.9 points over parts of five seasons.

Cline said his daughter, Norwayne sophomore basketball player Courtney Cline, considered Hardaway her favorite Scots player other than her brother JJ Cline.

“First and foremost, Najee was a great person, but he became a really good basketball player while he was here,” Doug Cline said. “He was a great athlete coming in and really improved his shooting. Defensively, he usually guarded the other team’s best player. He never backed down from a challenge.

"As a coach I always felt like he had my back. He was everything you could ask for in a Wooster basketball player, also making a big impact on campus with the faculty and other students.”

In 2023 Hardaway earned second-team All-North Coast Athletic Conference honors after pacing the Fighting Scots with 12.3 points per game and helping guide Wooster to the NCAC championship.

I will always remember sitting courtside on press row when Hardaway and Turner Kurt celebrated after Kurt’s last-second 3-point shot beat Wabash College 75-74 to clinch that title Feb. 18, 2023.

Hardaway was just the second player to spend five years in the Wooster program, Cline said, joining Brandon Johnson (2006-10), who received an extra year of eligibility due to an injury. Hardaway got an extra year due to a season being wiped out because of COVID-19.

“Turner and Najee helped to restore our program,” Cline said at the time. “With COVID-19 we basically never had seniors for those two years. Najee was more of a role player as a sophomore, but the last two years he’s been a significant contributor. Turner played his first two years at Edinboro, but he’s also been a leader here, and those two guys have shown the younger guys how to be a Wooster basketball player.”

Hardaway told me after the Wabash game, “This was a lot of fun. My brother Turner hit a huge shot to get the win on Senior Night, and it couldn’t be more picture-perfect. After last year I was coming back from the jump. We knew if we got this same group twice, we could make something special happen.”

Earlier this week I saw Kurt and expressed my condolences. I asked if Hardaway was on the court for that last-second shot, expecting a “yes.”

“Najee set the screen to get me open,” Kurt said.

That was fitting for the kind of team player Hardaway was.

“It’s just really hard,” Kurt said. “He was a great teammate and friend.”

Cline was told that just recently a former Scots player had asked Hardaway for a loan, and he obliged without a second thought.

“That’s just how Najee was; he’d do anything he could for anybody,” Cline said. “This is just really sad. It shows how fragile life is.”

Aaron Dorksen can be emailed at aarondorksen24@gmail.com.