There’s something chilling about the final words I heard from Jasper Howard following UConn’s win over Louisville on Saturday. “You’ve got to play every play like it’s your last play … Coach Edsall always stresses that,” Howard said with a knit cap pulled over his ears sitting in the interview area. As a starting cornerback and team leader, Howard was talking about the sense of urgency UConn needed to play with in the fourth quarter. Then off he went back to campus, where his life would end nearly 12 hours later; the victim of a tragic and senseless stabbing outside the student union. It was powerful stuff, especially when Coach Edsall, fighting back tears, said, “There’s nothing in my job description that says you have to identify bodies, you have to make the phone calls to the parents, but that’s part of the job, and it’s very, very unfortunate and I just hope that I never have to go through what I went through today. Howard was going to be a father, leading to another emotional moment from senior Desi Cullen, who spoke so gracefully on behalf of the players, said, “Hearing the news that he’s a father breaks my heart. The idea that he will grow up without a father tears me apart … if I could talk to him or his family, I would them tell his son, or daughter, they will have 105 more uncles for the rest of their life.” Rest in Peace man. It is crazy what this world has come to. This tragic event will make an already close team even tighter. They will play the rest of the season, starting Saturday at West Virginia, in Howard’s honor.
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