The University of Connecticut football team played a great game against West Virginia on Saturday. After a back and forth game with big scoring drives, UConn came up just a little short and lost the game 28–24.

The team was clearly inspired by the death of their teammate Jasper Howard. The 20-year-old star cornerback was stabbed to death after a fight outside an on-party campus a little over a week ago.

"I think they came out today and honored their teammate Jasper Howard the way they played," UConn Coach, Randy Edsall, told the New York Times about his team. "The love and compassion they have for each other is unmatched."

This morning, instead of practicing for their next game against Rutgers, the team will be in Howard's hometown of Miami for his funeral.

"I'm not sure exactly what's going to happen. I think it's going to be a difficult day for some of these young people," Edsall said to the Advocate newspaper. "But this is a lesson for them in life. These are the things you have to deal with in life."

Edsall has been a pillar for the group of young men he leads on to the football field each week, but I have to respectfully disagree with him.The death of a 20-year-old man over nonsense is not something other 18- to- 21-year-old young adults should have to deal with. It's not something Howard's mother, who worked multiple jobs to support her family, should have to deal with, and it's not something his unborn child should have to struggle with one day.

Senseless violence should not end the life of a young man who tried to steer clear of the wrong path by using football to get to college. A fight, whose cause is probably not worth the keystrokes to describe, shouldn't have ended with the death of a young man who had plans to play football on the professional level and help support his family.

"All I wanted him to do was go to school and get an education, and he was doing what I asked him to do," Howard's mother, Joanglia, told WSVN-TV.

No one has been charged with Howard's murder and, according to the New York Times, "Police say witnesses have been threatened and told not to talk to the authorities."

Three of Howard's teammates and dozens of other UConn students and party attendees may have information that could help catch Howard's murderer. They must put their fears aside and step forward. To use Coach Edsall's words: "This is a lesson for them in life. These are the things you have to deal with in life."

The lesson here is about standing up for what's right. The lesson is that despite the threats from thugs and admonishment from the ignorant, those who have information that may help get a killer off the street must step forward. The lesson is that if we band together and protect those who come forward, we can stop living in fear of those who thrive off of our fear.

The lesson is that we must send the strongest message possible that we will not tolerate young people who want to kill other young people over foolishness. The lesson is that Jasper Howard's efforts at making a better life for himself were not in vain.