Last week during class, we had a presentation about athletes and crime and whether they should be allowed back in their respective league again. However, I want to write about athletes and crime in the opposite manner. This would be criminal acts that regular citizens do to professional athletes. Although many minor events may occur, I want to focus on a much more significant issue, murder.
This issue stems off an incident that occurred over this past weekend at the University of Connecticut. It was homecoming weekend this past weekend at UConn and the football team had a big game against division rival Louisville. UConn ended up winning the game 38-25 and had many reasons to celebrate their most recent victory. After the game, the school had sponsored a dance in the student union where students could come together and celebrate the victory and other homecoming festivities.
However, it was the incident after the dance that has caused so much conversation. After the dance, Jasper Howard, UConn's starting cornerback, was stabbed to death in the center of the Connecticut campus. As of now, the investigation of this murder is still on-going and the killer is still at large, but reports have shown that police are ready to arrest a few potential suspects very soon. Jasper grew up in a very rough neighborhood in Miami, FL. It is very rare for young men to escape this town and all the trouble it possesses and even more rare for young men to attend college. He was the first in his family to attend college and wanted to take his game to the next level and repay his family for the sacrifices they had made for him.
I think this is a very heart-breaking story. This was a young man, only 20 years old, trying to provide a better life for himself and his family. He defied the odds and escaped his dark childhood to help achieve his goals. Jasper was also expected to become a father in the near future and makes this story even more disheartening. It's sad to see an athlete that many people respect and admire be taken of their life for no real apparent reason in this case. This young man is a college student just like us and deals with the life of a college student just like us. It's crazy to think about. What if this were to happen to someone we knew or one of our favorite collegiate athletes that we look up to? This is an unfortunate story of a life that was taken much too soon.
Jasper Howard #6 1989-2009
rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=ap-uconnstabbing&prov=ap&type=lgns
This incident really saddens me too. I find myself cheering for UConn more now and hoping they do and finish well in the season. This murder had an effect on many people and mostly to think of what it did to the team cohesion. I think about the situation too and just wonder why anyone would kill a player who represents the university in a big way. Over the years there are always sudden deaths that impact to sport world, not just murders but also car accidents, on field injuries and sudden death can change the mind-set of a team. They sometime become unfocused or it can bring them together. I hope that this will help UConn grow as a program and that it does not hurt them.
ReplyDeleteThis is a tragic story that I first heard about from Dr. Cho, who attended UConn to obtain his doctorate in Sport Management. He said that the campus was devastated about the slaying. We tend to think of colleges and universities as being relatively "safe" havens for people who live and go to school there. So whenever the news of killings occurs on or around college campuses, it seems so senseless. Thanks for sharing this story.
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