Page said students and faculty members filled the Lee Amphitheater, where they observed a moment of silence for each of the accident victims and listened to Dean of Yale College Richard H. Brodhead speak about the tragedy.

Brodhead, who has served as the dean for more than a decade, said the accident was one of the greatest tragedies the Yale community has endured.

“I’ve been at Yale a long time and this is as black a day as I’ve seen,” Brodhead told the assemblage. “These were people like you, people in their prime, people who had everything in front of them.”

Another moment of silence was observed Saturday afternoon when Yale Athletic Director Thomas A. Beckett announced the death of Nicholas Grass, who had been in critical condition since the accident, to the crowd at the women’s basketball game against Brown University.

Maria J. Smear, captain of the women’s basketball team, said she and her teammates had contemplated cancelling Saturday’s game out of respect for the accident victims, but decided to play as scheduled to honor the memories of their friends.

“We played to celebrate those guys,” said Yale sophomore Laura G. Toscano. “These guys were athletes, so going to a sporting event was quite appropriate.”

Students said Saturday’s athletic event was one of the few ordinary occurrences of the weekend.

“On Thursday night everyone was looking forward to the long weekend,” Toscano said. “But all the parties were cancelled and we just spent time together playing board games and talking. We did a lot of healthy things together.”

Remembering the Victims

Students and administrators remembered junior Sean Fenton at a memorial service held in Yale’s Battell Chapel Sunday—the only service that will be held on campus, according to last week, according to Yale spokesperson Helaine S. Klasky.

“Of course there were a lot of tears, but there was a lot of laughter too,” Klasky said. “People were recalling some fun and silly things about their friends.”

According to Fenton’s roommate Wolf, Fenton was a member of the football team during his first year but later quit the team to pursue other interests.

“He had been playing football most of his life and it just wasn’t so much fun for him anymore,” Wolf said.

Fenton, a computer science major, eventually joined the Yale Entrepreneurial Society and helped fellow students with computer problems as a computing assistant.

According to Wolf, Fenton joined Delta Kappa Epsilon last year.