Jasper Howard: We All Grieve For UConn's Fallen Son

In the cold early Sunday morning hours, on the comfortable campus of the University of Connecticut, a young football player laid dying.

Jasper Howard, a defensive back who had helped his Husky team earn a victory in the school's homecoming game against Louisville hours earlier, lay in the arms of teammate Kashif Moore.

Howard was mortally wounded, stabbed in the abdomen, his promising young life was slipping away as Moore held him.

No doubt Howard fought hard, but he couldn't be saved.

UConn Nation lost their "Jazz." A mother lost her son, two sisters lost the brother they adored, and his unborn child lost its father.

Jazz Howard was a special player. He was a young man of great potential, a young man with a future who was taken from his college, his football teammates, and his family by a cruel act of violence, in the last place you'd expect it to happen.

His coach, Randy Edsall, received the dreaded telephone call around 1:00 a.m. Hours later, he was asked to identify Howard's body.

Grief and shock cannot describe the emotions that have filtered through the UConn campus and beyond.

Disbelief still grips those who played with Jazz, lived with Jazz, and loved the spirit that he brought to the school. He escaped the mean streets of Miami, only to become a victim of violence in a spot close to the Husky Statue, the spot on the Storrs campus that signifies all that is good about UConn.

All at UConn are mourning their lost classmate, their teammate, their friend, their son.

And we should mourn with them.

My friend Rob Lunn was there for this homecoming event. He is part of UConn's football family. He played for four years, graduated, and is unwavering in his love for his school, his team, and for Jazz.

Lunn was with Jazz a few weeks ago at a Monday night football game. They sat together, talked about life, about football, about UConn.

Lunn is grieving. This has hit him hard, I know. He is my friend.

He has told us that Jazz was a great teammate, a great young man, soft-spoken, and destined to lead the UConn football team in coming years.

"Jasper Howard was a man of incredible character and work ethic," Lunn wrote in his email. "He would have undoubtedly risen to the rank of team captain in seasons to come. I have no doubt that Jazz, while undersized, would have been an NFL-caliber player. He was soft-spoken but was a vocal leader on the field. He pushed, provoked, and simply brought out the best in his teammates. I am always grateful to have been part of UConn football, but I am without a doubt a better man for having shared the same field with Jazz."

Strong sentiment from the player well-known for his FatWhiteGuy.com blog during his senior year at UConn.

Lunn is a big, imposing fellow, a former defensive lineman. But I know he has a soft heart. He is hurting and he has cried over the loss of Jazz.

I cry with him.

For this was an act that is difficult to reconcile, a senseless crime, a murder that took more than the life of Jasper Howard. It was an act that violated UConn. A college campus is a safe haven for youth. It is a place where young memories are made and stored away and brought forth time and again as we age, as time and circumstance make life more difficult.

These young people at UConn will never forget this. It will remain part of them for the rest of their lives.

Time does not erase such memories.

They will carry Jazz Howard with them.

And Kashif Moore will never forget that night and the teammate who laid dying in his arms. "I held him in my arms as long as I could. I didn't want to let him go," Moore remembered.

Moore had to let him go, but he and his teammates, all at the university will remember.

We should all remember Jasper Howard, who is now in God's arms.