By Bob Hertzel
MORGANTOWN — Just twelve hours earlier there was a winning smile on Bill Stewart’s face. Why not? His West Virginia football team had just beaten intrastate rival Marshall and the injury to his quarterback, Jarrett Brown, was not nearly as serious as it first appeared.
Yet there he was on Sunday morning, tears in his eyes, his heart weighing heavily in his chest.
Word had just reached him that Jasper Howard, a starting cornerback at Connecticut, a kid he was expecting to be trying to beat this week, was dead.
It was shocking, senseless death, the victim of a stabbing on campus the night after UConn had defeated Louisville in its homecoming game. As police put it together there was a dance at the Student Union in Storrs, someone pulled a fire alarm, a fight broke out and Jasper Howard wound up laying in a pool of blood on Hillside Road near the center of campus.
It was not long after 12:30 a.m., and who was it once said nothing good ever happens after midnight.
By the time Stewart arrived to do his weekly Sunday afternoon conference call, the shock perhaps had worn off but the grief remained.
Some people talk about the heart, others talk from the heart.
Bill Stewart was clearly shaken.
He is that kind of man. A caring man, a sensitive man, a person who understands that football is an entertainment medium, a diversion, but that in the real world it does not rank with such matters as health and family.
It is a game, not a religion, and when a real world tragedy interrupts the games people play, Stewart believes it is time to step back and reflect upon the important things in life.
“First and foremost, I would like to start with a very sincere, heartfelt condolence statement by the Mountaineer football staff, and most importantly the team and the whole West Virginia nation, to the situation with the UConn football family,” Stewart said to begin what would be a remarkable press conference.
“To Jasper Howard’s family in Florida, to Coach Randy Edsall and his coaching staff and to all of Jasper’s teammates — we are absolutely heartbroken for you,” Stewart continued. “We are just stunned, as the nation is, regarding what happened on that campus in the early morning hours today after such a tremendous game he played yesterday (at Louisville).”
Living himself in a college town, being the father of teenaged boy, Stewart understands what the family is going through. He knows about how the Howard family in Miami sent their son to Connecticut, got him off the mean, urban streets, to a town that is small in size and lined with trees.
It is where he should have been safe from harm, able to grow as a person, gain an education and prepare himself for 10,000 tomorrows.
“I’m just sick for Randy and Jasper’s family. My God, how short and sweet life is and what we take for granted,” Stewart continued. “This has been weighing heavily in our hearts. Your West Virginia players are visibly upset at this time. They knew this man. I will certainly address this situation today and the short, but wonderful life of Jasper Howard.”
There are football coaches who would utter similar words. Some of them — maybe even most of them — would mean them, but somehow you sense that in Stewart the wound was just a bit deeper, a bit more personal. The events, you sensed, tore just a bit more deeply than it might in others who really didn’t have a personal relationship with the football player or his family.
“I remember Jasper from last year,” Stewart said. “I haven’t seen a snap from this year, except his playmaking highlights from yesterday prior to our game. I remember him leading the Big East in punt returns and him as an absolute terror on special teams. He looked like a leader and an emotional, fun-living guy.”
The one thing that wasn’t on Stewart’s mind at the moment was the game that is scheduled to be played in Morgantown next week, about how UConn will react to the tragedy, about whether they should be given more time than a week to grieve.
“I don’t know how this week will go or how this poor tragedy will affect everything,” Stewart said. “We’ll have to talk about that later because I am not mentally prepared to right now. I can’t imagine what Randy is going through. I’m visibly shaken by this situation, and I don’t have a whole lot to say today.”
The conversation eventually would shift to Jarrett Brown’s concussion, and to the Marshall game and Geno Smith’s spectacular performance off the bench, and it may have seemed like business as usual, but you knew Stewart was having trouble talking.
It’s hard to talk when your heart is in your mouth.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
