CHICAGO – Gentry Hunt, a dedicated advanced biology teacher, also volunteers his time as a basketball coach at East-West University. On a recent afternoon, he had just left the university and was heading to St. Sabina’s basketball gym in Auburn Gresham when he became an unintended victim of gun violence. Hunt was shot in the shoulder during a dispute that he was not involved in.

“I looked up at the sky while they pressed on my wound to stop the bleeding,” Hunt recalled. “In that moment, I was just grateful to have a few seconds to say a prayer.”

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Now recovering at his home on Chicago’s West Side, Hunt displayed the clothing he wore when the incident occurred. The bullet’s entry and exit points are starkly evident on the fabric.

“Before I left, my sixth graders, who were saddened by my departure, signed the back of my shirt with a Sharpie,” Hunt shared. “Their signatures and messages are still visible here.”

“I had all my sixth graders who were sad that I was leaving sign the back of my shirt with a Sharpie marker. A lot of their names are on here. Some of them have messages on here,” Hunt said.

Hunt was walking up to St. Sabina’s gymnasium Sunday to participate in a one-on-one basketball tournament when the shooting broke out.

The founder of ProCreate Academy, Hunt is dedicated in part to keeping young boys and men off the streets through basketball.

“I train kids and give them skills, not only as basketball players but as students, to be able to take their skills and put them all in one pot and figure out what’s the best thing they can do,” Hunt said.

Hunt is lucky. The bullet did not hit any major arteries or bones. And yet, he can only wonder.

“A couple of inches in either direction and things could have been different. It was kind of a wakeup call for me in how short life can be, and how intentional I have to be with every single moment in my life, and intentional with every single student and every student-athlete,” Hunt said.

And even as Chicago police have released pictures of two men and a car they are trying to locate in connection with the shooting that injured two others, Hunt says he bears no ill will toward the man who shot him.

“I know that bullet wasn’t intended for me. But it did hit me, and I do want them to understand that not only did it hit him, but you could have killed someone,” Hunt said.

The outpouring of support has been such that Hunt’s organized a gathering of his students past and present Friday at East-West’s gymnasium.

And even though it’s only been a few days, he says might even test out his shoulder on the basketball court.