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UConn stabbing hits Miami Valley native hard

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By Sean McClelland, Staff Writer 12:01 AM Saturday, November 21, 2009

No handbook prepares a young athlete for the violent death of a teammate. And who would have seen anything like this coming in Storrs, Conn., a place with a definite “middle of nowhere” feel?

“We were shocked, especially my mom,” said University of Connecticut redshirt freshman linebacker Jory Johnson. “She had been out of town on a cruise for business. She couldn’t contact me until days later. She kept texting me, calling me, wanting to know what happened.”

Johnson, who moved with his family from the Dayton area to Mobile, Ala., before high school, did not attend the Oct. 18 on-campus dance from which junior cornerback Jasper Howard’s fatal stabbing stemmed. He said the days and weeks since have been about rallying around Howard’s memory.

“During practice, I was so used to seeing him all the time,” Johnson said. “Then, not seeing him the next day and for days after that was just weird and awkward.

“Coach (Randy Edsall) handled it real well. He told us not to stop playing, that it’s not what Jazz would want. He was someone who really liked to compete, and that’s what we’ve been trying to do.”

Johnson, whose mom, Jennifer, worked at Wright-Patt in logistics, attended a prep school in Princeton, N.J. He picked UConn over Missouri, Kentucky and Bowling Green and has been a fixture on special teams, with two starts on defense, in his first season playing for the Huskies. “We had four guys drafted (into the NFL) last year,” Johnson said. “I’m just trying to work hard and build up a good background.”

UConn is at Notre Dame today, Nov. 21.

“We still talk about Jazz, but we don’t really get down and depressed anymore,” Johnson said. “We remember him as he was, always laughing and smiling, always trying to be the life of the room. He liked to live life to the fullest.”

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