Aaron Lloyd (Cheltenham, PA/Cheltenham) is one of five seniors on the men's basketball team to be honored prior to Friday's season finale against Saint Paul's College. Although he earns just a few minutes each night, his leadership and tenacity instilled in him from a devastating car accident might make his Senior Day the most special.

 It's a game against St. Augustine, with 10 seconds remaining in regulation earlier this year. Lincoln University senior guard Aaron Lloyd (Cheltenham, PA/Cheltenham) takes a pass from half court, dribbles a few times, and calmly sinks a three pointer.

For those in attendance, this shot was just another basket in just another regular season game, but for Lloyd, it was a testament for how far he has come. Just two years ago, walking, let alone playing ball, was an afterthought.

After finishing his first season for Lincoln with 4.1 points and 4.3 rebounds per game on the night of April 12, 2008, Lloyd and four of his friends were driving back to campus from Atlantic City at five in the morning when he fell asleep behind the wheel. The events that occurred afterward are all a blur in the mind of Lloyd.

He doesn't remember anything. Not his friends trying to jostle him awake, the screeching tires, the collision with the guard rail nor the SUV ramming into his gold 1995 Nissan Sentra at 50 miles per hour.

“I remember waking up a month later with an afro in the hospital,” he said. “I asked my dad what happened, and he said I was in an accident.”

Lloyd had gone into a drug induced coma. He suffered a shattered pelvis, internal bleeding, multiple scars, a punctured lung, kidney damage, and had to undergo a colostomy.

Three others were hurt.  Antoine Stewart walked away without a physical scar, but suffered a different kind of toll.

Chris Hall, Rashad Smith and Jevaughn Woodley had been ejected through the windshield, over the guard rail and into the woods. Stewart went looking for them, discovering Hall with a shattered leg that would later be amputated and Smith with a fractured vertebra. Jevaughn Woodley escaped with some scars to the face.

“He saw the most,” Lloyd said referring to Stewart. “I don't know how he maintained.”

Realizing the depth of his mistake while laying in that hospital bed, Lloyd first had to get over the guilt that he placed on himself for what occurred on that spring night. Even though they had to go through unimaginable pain, the four young men offered their contrite friend forgiveness. They knew that life was a gift that is taken from many. One of them easily could not be here today.

“They are like my best friends,” says Lloyd. “They told me things happen. I was not trying to hear that. I was trying to take responsibility. When I called them, they were so supportive. They said stuff happens and I'm happy you are alive, like forget all of that. They were talking to me like I just won the lottery.”

With reassurance of his comrades and the same trait that kept Lloyd from relenting while on the cusp of being cut every day for nearly two weeks prior to the 2007-08 season, Lloyd vowed to come back a better person and player. He spent about two months in the hospital and in rehab.

“Being in the hospital and seeing all the stuff they made and getting all the cards, that really meant something,” Lloyd said. “I never thought I would be one of those people that would say that means something because I'm not mushy.”

Lincoln head coach Garfield Yuille has built a relationship with the Lloyd's over the years. Seeing Lloyd in his condition was like seeing his own son.

“I did not think that Aaron was going to survive,” Yuille said. “No way, he looked so bad. I asked the nurse and she gave me a look as if he may not make it. He had so much to go through.”

His dedication to recovery allowed him to come back to campus in August, deciding to take a medical redshirt in the hopes of someway earning back a spot. To take his mind off basketball during that trying year, Lloyd was a tutor, focused on his academics more, and worked out on his own. His 3.57 GPA is tops on the men's basketball team.

Having to learn to walk again, he began by trying to put pressure on his pelvis just to stand. Strength work eventually led to steps and steps to strides.

“I had to learn how to walk and just trying to get stronger,” he said. “Every day, it was getting a little better. When I decided to give myself an extra year, I was like maybe by that time I will be healed enough to play ball and go out the way I wanted to go out.”

After his redshirt year, Lloyd saw his goal of suiting up for Lincoln getting clearer. He took to the weight room and court like never before. Lloyd was a regular attendant of LA Total Fitness.

Those strides culminated on the hardwood, testing his mettle in the famed Sonny Hill Summer League, which features the area's top college players. In his first game, Lloyd went for 19 points. He was finally ready.

“When I went to Aaron's house, he was dribbling the ball around the house and taking shots in his back yard,” Yuille said. “ 'Impossible,' I thought. He kept saying to me he was going to return, and he did.”

On November 11, 2009, the season opener for the Lions versus West Chester University, Lloyd would play three minutes of action on the Manuel Rivero Hall gym floor. This was his first official game action since that fateful night. The scoreless evening was anything but pointless, because the fact that Lloyd could run after having to learn how to walk again was a highlight on its own.

 Lloyd does not get emotional over that night. It was never in doubt.

“I knew I wasn't going to quit,” he said. “I was here for a reason. When I saw pictures of the car, I knew that I should not have made it. It had to be a reason. So I was not going to quit. The only way I was going to be denied is if they told me you can't play no more. I always knew I was going to come back. Maybe like on senior night it might hit me.”

Senior night; a moment every athlete cherishes. It's safe to say that it will hold more meaning for Lloyd. Gone are nights of waking up at night with the images and sounds of pain. He now has visions of walking across the stage in May with Stewart to accept his degree.

What was once a nightmare has turned into a dream ending, not just for Lloyd, but for the four other young men. Hall, Smith, and Woodley graduated last May and have plans of attending graduate school in the near future. Lloyd is a double major in history and political science and a minor in black studies. The possibility of Temple University Law School looms.

“Aaron is a very articulate young man,” Yuille says, reflecting on his time with Lloyd. “Strong willed mentally and physically. He is very respectful and very coachable. I love his determination and hard work, on and off the court.”

Lloyd still has a game left. He may not make any crowd pleasing moves, but if they only knew how far he has come. What this young man has learned over the past two years is more valuable than any three point basket.

“I try not to think about it much, just try and move past it,” Lloyd says. “I have a new outlook on things. The way I look at it is that I got it worse than some, but better than a lot more. Look at me now and I look at people who are struggling, you know people in Haiti. How can I really complain about this when they are going through that? My dad used to always tell me that I need to slow down. Not being able to walk and being in a hospital, you have to learn to be patient. I learned not to take things for granted. Mentally, I'm totally a different person. I think for the better actually.”