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Indiana native honored as hero after Columbine

Posted at 11:45 PM, Feb 12, 2016
and last updated 2016-02-12 23:45:58-05

VEEDERSBURG, Ind. -- When a basketball gym gets a name, you might say it takes on an attitude, and a spirit. 

In Veedersburg, who better to name a gym after than Dave Sanders?

Sanders was killed while trying to save students in the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado on April 20, 1999. 

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30 years prior to finding himself in the middle of the Columbine massacre, he was the team captain for Fountain Central's basketball team. 

Greg Lightly played with him. 

"I considered him one of my best friends, but you could probably find another 500 people who thought Dave was their best friend because that's who he was," Lightly said. 

It was Sander's coach who helped land him a teaching and coaching job at Columbine High.

That's where friends say the All-American student athlete turned into a genuine American hero.

On that April 1999 day, once the shots rang out at Columbine, he directed hundreds of students from the cafeteria to safety.

During that rescue effort Dave was shot. Students tried to stop the bleeding using their own clothes.  

Sanders was the only faculty member to die that day. 

Almost 17 years, athletes play on the court that bears his name with the motto "Character counts." 

Dave Sanders lives on, if only in spirit. 

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