Tragedy cares little about timing when it comes calling.

It doesn’t play favorites. It will attack the rich, the poor; the happy, the sad; good people, bad people. Tragedy has no conscience. It simply doesn’t care.

Two weeks ago, the Husson College women’s basketball team returned to Bangor from the NAIA Division II national tournament in Monmouth, Ore., high off the thrill of making it all the way to the Final Four.

Three days later, the thrill was gone. Basketball and victories were no longer important to the Braves. Reality was suddenly shoved down their throats.

Seventy-two hours after the team returned to Bangor on Feb. 17, assistant coach Ed Gott was rushed to Eastern Maine Medical Center. He has been unconscious ever since, the victim of bacterial meningitis.

According to an EMMC nursing supervisor, Gott was in serious condition in the hospital’s intensive care unit on Monday night.

“We’re taking it day by day,” said Joan Gott, Ed Gott’s wife of 43 years. “He’s shown some small signs of improvement. He squeezes our hands. He’s in there somewhere.”

According to Mrs. Gott, her husband may have suffered a ruptured eardrum during the return flight from Oregon. The rupture started the process of bacteria reaching the meninges (three membranes which envelop the site where the spinal cord meets the brain), causing the meningitis.

The meningitis has since cleared up, according to Mrs. Gott. The family is awaiting further neurological tests before they know if any permanent damage has occurred.

The news of Gott’s sudden illness shocked the Husson women’s team.

“Everybody was pretty upset over it,” said head coach Kissy Walker, also a longtime family friend. “Right now, there is a lot of concern.”

“I think everybody is trying to be very positive right now,” said Vicki Mazerall, a senior guard. “We’re hoping for the best and comforting the family. The family has put their lives on hold. We just want to be there for them.”

On the surface, the 65-year-old Gott looks out of place adjacent to the 28-year-old Walker and 25-year-old assistant Randy Dodge. Truth be told, though, Gott was as comfortable on the sidelines as he was in the classroom, where he spent his professional career as a teacher.

“He’s a happy-go-lucky grandfather figure who lives for his family and basketball, in that order,” Mazerall said.

Gott’s basketball career has gone full circle, taking him from Husson (as a player) to places such as Deer Isle, Oakfield, and Hampden. He also coached at the Garland Street Middle School in Bangor, where one of his former players was Gov. John McKernan.

He returned to Husson four years ago as Walker’s assistant after Walker replaced Lauree Gott, Ed Gott’s daughter and Walker’s best friend.

The biggest impressions Gott left on the team have been his focus – make that obsession – with fundamentals, as well as his keen sense of humor.

“The way he cares about kids, he’s more like a grandfather,” Walker said. “He’s always teasing them, picking on them. But the kids have a lot of respect for him.”

Tragedy doesn’t care about any of that, however. It has burst onto the scene, struck with its severity, and left its damage for the family and friends to deal with, through the tears and the pain.

The Husson College women’s basketball team hasn’t given up on Ed Gott. Nor will Gott give up on himself.

On Saturday night, the family had a television showing the Indiana-Kansas NCAA Midwest Regional championship game near his bed. Then, before Lauree Gott left her father’s side for a trip back to her Boston home, she told her father he had to get better so he could get back to the basketball team.

Both times, Gott showed signs of bouncing back. Small signs, but they offered, at least, a little more hope.

Somewhere inside the EMMC building, Ed Gott has a full-court press going against Team Tragedy. It would be one more victory the Husson Braves would love to have.