Last weekend something very sad happened. After the University of Connecticut (UCONN) football game against Louisville (which they won) one of their star players, cornerback Jasper Howard, was stabbed to death as he left a dance held in the Student Union.
His family, team, and campus were crushed. But this week UCONN still had to travel to West Virginia (WVU) for a Big East conference football game. That is where a sad story turns into a happy story (as much as it can).
How About A Happy Story is a diary I write from time to time (and should write more often) about maybe a little news story that would not normally get talked about here. Most days news, almost no matter where you look, seems to be so darn depressing. But often there are some happy stories out there, people practicing random acts of kindness, trying to change the world. This is my humble effort to highlight a few of those.
When the players and coaching staff at WVU heard about Jasper Howard's murder they decided they wanted to do something yesterday to honor his life. Jasper was about to become a first time father. He was the first in his family to ever attend college. And he choose UCONN over a number of other football powerhouses in his home state, cause he wanted to get away from the gangs and violence he grew up with in Miami.
The WVU players asked their coach to call the UCONN coaching staff and see if it was OK if they wore a patch with Jasper's #6 on their jersey. During the conversation the coaches agreed there would also be a moment of silence before the game and the players and coaches would met at the center of the field to exchange handshakes and hugs before the game. You'd think this little display of sportsmanship would happen a lot in college football before a game. It never does.
As news spread on campus of what was being planned, the students decided to get involved:
Nobody would have blamed the university or the UConn football team if they told West Virginia thanks, but no thanks; we don’t need to be playing football this weekend. We would have understood, and we would have prayed and grieved with our boys in UConn blue.
But the Huskies did show up, and the people of Morgantown turned into one collective host family. What transpired is the unequivocal reason why we watch sports.
Hundreds of pins and armbands with Howard’s "6" on them were handed out at the entrances to Mountaineer Field. Must have been a determined UConn mother who put all of those together to remember Howard, right? Wrong. Try Kacy Korczyk, a student at West Virginia.
The WVU Mountaineer crowd gave the UCONN Huskies a long standing ovation as they took the field. And maybe the "coolest" thing of all, before the UCONN players took the field they walked past a huge banner that had been signed by thousands of WVU students throughout the week that simply read, "Today we are all Huskies."
As a huge sports fans I often find much of what is wrong with the world can be seen in sports, both at the college and professional level. But sometimes everything that is actually good can be seen there as well. I think this is a perfect example of that.