The College this week mourned the loss of junior Mark Stokes, who died Monday as a result of injuries he suffered in a car accident the day before near his home in New Milford, N.J.
Stokes, a junior sociology major, was a starting defensive end on the College's football team.
He had left campus after Saturday's victory over Worcester Polytechnic Institute to visit friends who had been affected by last week's terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, said John Audino, head football coach. The accident occurred as he was returning home, he said.
Stokes, 20, was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, N.Y., where he died of head injuries at around noon Monday.
Funeral services were to have been Thursday evening through Boulevard Funeral Home, 1151 River Rd., New Milford, N.J. The telephone number is (201) 692-0100. Plans for a campus memorial were incomplete on Wednesday.
A graduate of Bergen Catholic High School, Stokes was a National Honor Society student and a member of the high school's football team. He was named All-Bergen County, All
Parochial and All-State as a senior.
Audino and two other coaches spent much of Monday with Stokes' family before returning to campus for two meetings with the football team.
The team opted to play last Saturday in the wake of the terrorist bombings, and appears likely to play this week at Hobart College.
“As of this moment, we plan on playing,” Audino said at a press conference on Tuesday. “It's still up to the players as a team, but we talked about it at Monday's team meetings, and we're just trying to return to some sense of normalcy. We're just taking it day by day, as anyone does when someone in the family dies.”