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Oct 19, 2009 12:00 am US/Eastern
Miami Edison Grad, UConn Football Player Killed
Jasper Howard Was Going To Be A Father
By Solange Reyner
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
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Jasper Howard, a University of Connecticut football player, died following an on-campus stabbing, hours after the team's victory over Louisville. (File)
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After helping Connecticut to a big victory on Saturday, Jasper Howard called his mom to tell her about it. Joangila Howard never heard from him again.
"He said 'Mom, I'm going to a party,' and I said, 'Okay, please be careful.' That was the last time I talked to my baby," Joangila Howard told CBS4's Gio Benitez.
Jasper Howard, a junior and starting cornerback, was stabbed to death at an on-campus dance hours after UCONN's homecoming win against Louisville.
He was a Miami native who graduated from Miami Edison Senior High. He was also an expectant father.
"All he wanted to do was just make a career of his life and help me, that's all he used to tell me. They took him away from me," Joangila Howard said.
Howard, 20, and another student were stabbed during a fight after a fire alarm was pulled during a university sanctioned dance at the UConn Student Union just after 12:30 a.m., police said.
The fight and stabbing happened near Hillside Road, which is near the center of the Storrs campus. Police had not identified a suspect or released the name of the other victim.
UConn coach Randy Edsall says his team is heartbroken, devastated and upset over Howard's death.
"I know this," Edsall said, his eyes red and welling with tears, "he loved UConn; he loved his teammates; he loved everything about this."
Edsall, who had to identify Howard's body, says Howard's death was especially tragic because he was about to become a father.
Team captain and punter Desi Cullen says his teammates will make sure the child will have over 100 uncles.
"A lot of people may have looked at him as a teammate, as a friend, but ever since he stepped foot on this campus, he was our brother," said Cullen.
UConn Police Major Ronald Blicher said this is the first homicide at the university in the more than 30 years he has been associated with the school.
Blicher said Howard was stabbed following a fight between two groups that included students and non-students. The altercation broke out just after a fire alarm went off in the student center, forcing the evacuation of about 300 people, from a "Welcome Back" party and dance sponsored by the school's West Indian Awareness Organization.
Officials declined to say whether other athletes were involved in the incident.
"Certainly not all 300 saw this event," Blicher said. "We have been actively interviewing people through the night and day, and we continue to seek anybody who might have information."
Police were trying to determine whether the alarm and the fight were related and the university community sent out messages warning people to be cautious, but Blicher said officials don't believe anyone else is in danger.
"The university does not have an individual walking around just stabbing people," Blicher said.
Jasper Howard was the first from his family to go to college. He wanted to go to a good school so that he could eventually take his family out of one of Miami's poorest areas.
"I'm real close to all my guys, but Jazz and I were real close,'' Corey Bell, the director of football operations at the University of Miami and former Edison coach, told CBS WFOR partner The Miami Herald.
"We spoke at least once every week. He's a great kid,
coachable, dependable, real tough mentally and talented. He's like most
of the kids from that area in Little Haiti. He had dreams of getting to
the next level and making it and taking care of his mom and his
sister."
Edsall says the team plans to play next Saturday at West Virginia.
Howard led the Big East in punt returns last season and recovered a fumble in UCONN's 38-25 victory on Saturday.
He averaged 11.8 yards per punt return to lead the Big East and was 24th in the country in that category.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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