How can he be dead? A lineman wondered if God were sending a message. How can Casey be dead? He was a good person. All of the tissues had been used.Ī field goal kicker questioned the simple fact of death. They cried so much that an assistant coach at the team meeting went to the restroom to bring back some toilet paper. Arc football players allowed to cry? Yes. Something had to be done to lake a load off somewhere." There was too much trauma among too many people. "You didn't want to remove grief, because it's a natural thing, but you also wanted to remember some of the good memories. "You wanted to take an edge off the grief," Dr. A memorial service was scheduled for Thursday. It was best that everyone keep busy, especially during the late afternoon, when practice would have been held. So was the Reverend Jerry Young from the New Hope Baptist Church. Timothy Summers, a local psychiatrist and a graduate of Jackson State, was asked to speak at the team meeting. Why did it happen to them? Why has it happened again at Jackson State? Sadness for the dead was merged with guilt for the living.ĭr. Why didn't this happen to me? I could have been with Casey and Charles and Michael. She heard their questions that were so hard to answer. She saw the trauma played across their faces. Allen began working with players individually and in groups. I told the kids to watch themselves."Ī team meeting was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. I said, 'Hey, where's So-and-So?' I was told, 'Oh, he was in a crash. I came back to class and the desk next to me was empty. I told a story about myself when I was in college. "I talked about the things that had happened the past two years. "I hadn't said anything before this vacation, but I made it a point to talk to the team before spring break in March about being careful," Gorden said. The large worries of one day were suddenly insignificant on the next. The annual Blue and White game was scheduled for last Saturday night at Hughes Field. The team was supposed to reassemble on Tuesday of last week for the final days of spring practice. A series of tragedies had not only continued, but multiplied. In July 1989, the call was about running back Earl Eatman. Killed in a crash on his way home to Prichard, Ala. In March 1988, the telephone call was about defensive back Antonio Rogers. You think to yourself, well, they're on vacation.but, jeez, this is when the stuff happens." I have two grown children of my own, and I'm responsible for 95 football players. "I got the call at 3:35 on Monday morning," said Jackson State's football coach, W.C. What can be taken for granted? Not even tomorrow. Pictures of the victims are spread across the morning newspaper, and all of the bulletproof feelings of adolescence are challenged. Football is important.Īny fatal crash involving any number of kids is a shock to any undergraduate environment. Tradition is deep at Jackson State, the pro scouts arriving every year to weigh and measure and take two and three and four players to the big cities and the big noise. Willie and Gloster and Thomas Richardson. Harold Jackson caught passes Lem Barney defended against them. Walter Payton ran here before he was a Chicago Bear. He was a 250-pound linebacker.įootball is a large part of the soul of this predominantly black state school. Michael, 18, his friend from Whitehaven High in Memphis, was red shirted last year. Charles, 20, also coming off a red shirt freshman year, was a free-talking cornerback, expected to start. Casey, a red shirt freshman last season, had grown so large he was expected to take Darion's job next fall, creating a family succession at the position. His older brother, Darion, was last season's star, drafted on Sunday by the Atlanta Falcons as the second pick in the second round. Who didn't know Casey and Charles and Michael? Casey, 19, was a linebacker. Word of the crash was a somber greeting as students returned from their four-day weekend last Monday night. 'Wasn't that what I was thinking? Here it is. The young too often take media thoughts as truth. "You say something like that-'a curse against the Jackson State football team'-and it's almost like documentation to your deepest thoughts," says Dr. They said three young men were dead, and that there was a curse on the Jackson State football team. The news reports put the events into a convenient package. She stopped and looked inside and went screaming to Howard Hill, ran straight into Casey's parents' bedroom at 2:30 in the morning. Sharon recognized the white 1983 Ford Mustang that had crashed against the tree. Howard Hill is simply a cluster of nine houses and trailers, not an official town, a family place, everybody a Conner in one way or another. His cousin Sharon Johnson found the car, which wasn't so surprising.
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