Davidlind's profile David / 62, Male / Member since July 2007 / Online Now
Today U Conn is playing Notre Dame for the first time. And at half-time the score is 14-10 in favor of the Irish. The outcome should favor them of course although we have a surprisingly good contest to this point.
I am saying a little prayer for U Conn however and for reasons that go back decades to a scene next to some railroad tracks where two young boys sit and talk about life. Suddenly a rabbit runs across their path and watches them from a "safe" distance. The boys pick up a few of the small stones that are scattered about and start throwing them at their new friend who starts running in circles. One of the boys hits the rabbit between his pointy little ears. He looks at us in a moment of disbelief and then takes off down the tracks. But the boy is not done. He lofts another stone in a lazy arc and once again hits the rabbit in the noggin while the poor little guy no doubt wonders how such a thing could possibly happen.
The television program between the halves at Notre Dame's Homecoming Day included something about the U Conn player who was murdered following a game last month. There was a party and an altercation on campus that resulted in injuries and death.
Jasper Howard was a 20 year old athletic star with a promising future and all of that ended in a moment as the result of a senseless act. The news report today indicated that a man who is not a student at the university has been arrested and charged with murder.
As I am listening to this my mind is carried far, far away to the late 1950's. I have just returned to my third grade class after an absence of a month or more. I have learned to walk again because when you spend a great deal of time in a hospital bed you can forget how to walk. A friend of mine is helping me with a class assignment. He is showing me how to draw a tent and he does it in such a way that it is a perfectly drawn three dimensional representation of a tent. I am amazed at his ability to do this.
We are only in the third grade after all but as the years go by I am often amazed by his comments in class. He doesn't say a lot but when he makes a comment his words illuminate a subject. And when we arrive at our senior high school English class I am astounded by his insights into classic tales from our heritage of English and American authors.
He leaves me wondering "Why didn't I think of that?".
And then we go off to face the world. I went to Boston University and Scott went to The University of Connecticut. We had drifted apart in high school. He was able to hang out with the older guys and seemed to have an open invitation into any group. He was class president and busy with many activities. But my most vivid memory of those later years was running into him downtown on a street corner. He smiled as if I had asked for a photo and his front teeth were missing. They had been knocked out the night before in a collision with the steering wheel of his car.
Scott had an alcohol problem. Here was a guy voted Most Likely To Succeed who was a brilliant student and a good athlete and he didn't know when to stop. There were no rules that made a lot of sense to him. He got into fights too and one day in class we had a discussion about fighting. He talked about how fighting was different now that we were "older". He had been in a fight with a guy in the cemetery next to the school and he said it just went on and on. His point was that no one knew when to stop the fight. You just kept fighting until someone was unable to continue.
Unconscious or dead.
So I was not too surprised in my second year in college when I received a letter from my mom telling me that Scott had died at U Conn from a drug overdose.
I still think about him from time to time and probably will until the day I die. And when I saw Jasper Howard's teammates talking about him with so much emotion it touched a chord in my heart.
I hope that all these young men will avoid the violence and drugs that often kill so that they may have long lives that include true loves and satisfying accomplishments.
And memories that last a long time.
Update: U Conn ended up beating Notre Dame in their biggest win ever 33-30 in double overtime. And somewhere two boys are laughing about life and the small miracles that make it interesting to their young minds.
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