Monday, October 19, 2009

Live 365

Kashif Moore stood over the makeshift memorial outside the student union. Teammate Kijuan Dabney had a hoodie over his head.

The sweatshirts already had their good friend, Jasper Howard's picture, ironed into the front.

The pair stood with about 100 students, friends and teammates on Saturday night. There were about 30 football players and about 100 students who came out to the memorial. Pictures of Jazz were on poster board. Half of them were him playing football. Half of them were him in the dorm room.

On the poster had a simple message. Live 365.

Kashif Moore and Jazz were best friends and roommates. Moore was one of the six UConn players with him Sunday morning at the Student Union and Moore was there when Howard was stabbed. As a teammate tried to stop the bleeding in Howard's abdomen, Moore held his good friend in his arms.

"He was like in and out (of consciousness). I didn’t have time to be scared.”

Moore still can't believe this happened. It's been a 48 hour whirlwind.

“It’s still shocking. I haven’t been to sleep yet since I was with him and they told me. It felt like a dream, and it still feels like a dream. I can’t believe he is gone.”

"I was here with him (at the student union), I followed the ambulance to Windham Hospital. They took him by helicopter and told me where he is going right after that. I went to the hospital in Hartford."

"No one thought it would be that bad. I thought (Coach Edsall) was coming to tell us that, you know, he is going to survive and we were going to be able to visit him. About 20 something of us were there, we were waiting to go visit him."

"I can't tell you how sad this really hit me until I saw the poster and makeshift memorial. There was Jazz, full of life and spirit, at the place where it all went wrong."

There were people crying, hugging, but mostly outside the student year people were there searching for a reason why this happened.

I can't find a reason either. It's starting to hit here and I feel it. It's getting sadder by the minute.

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