UConn's Bagsby Talks About Players Being Targets

STORRS — - Like so many students at UConn, Aaron Bagsby walked slowly past the Student Union on his way to class Monday morning.

In a gray sweat shirt with the hood pulled over his head, partially covering his face, the starting safety surveyed the scene where teammate Jasper Howard was stabbed the day before after a school-sanctioned dance.

Howard, a junior cornerback from Miami who was about to become a father, died early Sunday at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford. He was 20.

Bagsby seemed as anonymous as the hundreds of other students in the area, but the sophomore safety from Henderson, Nev., understands that a football player can be in the spotlight.

"I've been told that we can be targets," Bagsby said. "It can be anything, envy, jealousy, I have no idea. We're bigger targets than the average person. Any time you go out, you try to avoid confrontation at all costs. That's what I try to tell everybody. You don't have to get into a fight. Just walk away. It's so simple."

Bagsby reflected on Howard.

"Jazz was from Little Haiti. He was from a rough spot. For him to make it out of such a rough spot in his life, to survive there for 18 years of his life and then come to Storrs, you feel safe in Storrs," Bagsby said. "This is like a safe haven. Nothing can go wrong in Storrs. That's how we're supposed to see it. For that to happen is just crazy."

Bagsby said he wasn't at the Student Union on Saturday night. He said word of the incident spread fast through team members Sunday morning.

"It's hard times right now," he said. "It's real depressing. Jazz was close to all of us. It's just like, for us to come off a great victory, to lose somebody like that, I don't know. It just hurts. It hurts a lot. You see him every day. He's a brother to me. He's been a brother to me for three years. You spend three years here and over one night, when you're celebrating, to lose him like that, it's really rough right now."

It will stay that way, but the team will return to the practice field today after its usual day off Monday. The players face the most unusual of circumstances, trying to concentrate on the next game and remembering their fallen teammate.

Leading them through it is coach Randy Edsall. On the weekly Big East conference call Monday morning, the coach spoke about two players who were with Howard as he lay bleeding. He would not identify the players, and he said the decision on whether they will practice this week and play Saturday at West Virginia was up to them. On Monday night, Kashif Moore, returning from a vigil in front of the team's practice facility, said he was one of the players with Howard.

On the conference call earlier in the day, Edsall said safety Jerome Junior called Tim Pendergast, UConn's director of football operations, to inform him of the stabbing, but it was not known if Junior, who has started four games at strong safety, is one of the players referred to by Edsall.

The Huskies will wear a "JH" decal on their helmets for the rest of the season and bring Howard's jersey and helmet to each of the final six games. That decision was made by captains Desi Cullen, Scott Lutrus, Robert McClain and Anthony Sherman.

"As I met with them and gave them a couple options, they decided that they wanted to wear the JH on the back of the helmet," Edsall said.

Edsall spent much of Monday with Howard's parents, Joangila Howard and Alex Moore. He picked up the parents and Howard's uncle at Bradley International Airport, then went with them to St. Francis. They met with Dr. William Marshall, associate director for critical care and trauma, before going to the UConn Health Center in Farmington, where Howard's body was being kept. Edsall brought the family members to campus, where they met with the team in the locker room.

The funeral service is expected to be held in Miami next week, perhaps as early as Monday. The entire team is expected to attend, which is acceptable under NCAA rules.