In the coming days, we'll hopefully read about the life of Jasper Howard, human being. For the moment, we can only remember Jasper as most of us knew him: as a football player. A poster on UConn's Scout.com forum, the Boneyard, put together the above short video of Jasper's highlights, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't shed a few tears watching it.
Among other links as we sort through this tragedy:
- The Courant's Jeff Jacobs has posted a column that pretty much touches on everything I've been thinking about this afternoon
- As we tweeted a few minutes ago, Fox 61 has a video interview with UConn police major Ronald Blicher. It's a good summary of the story as we know it thus far, though obviously there are lots of details to be filled in as the investigation moves on.
- Heart-rending AP update: Howard was to be a father; team captain Desi Cullen promises "100 uncles" for the child
- Cullen's full statement from this afternoon
- UConn president Michael Hogan releases a statement
- Joe Perez at the Norwich Bulletin and John Silver at the J-I wrap up this afternoon's press conference
- West Virginia coach Bill Stewart opened his Sunday teleconference with some nice words
- UConnHuskies.com and the Courant both have photo galleries of Howard in action
We'll try to keep up with all of the reaction and memorials as they happen. This is a very tough day to be a member of the UConn family.