Team, fans join mothers in remembering sons who left the game too early
Judy Nash and Rosalind Williams had never met.
They’ll never forget the night they did.
Last Sunday before the Denver Broncos thrilling victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers, the two mothers who lost sons were able to grieve with the team and its fans.
Damien Nash, an all-state running back and state champion at Riverview Gardens who had won a valued running back role with the Broncos, died Feb. 24 after hosting a charity basketball game in St. Louis. Darrent Williams, a starting cornerback for the Broncos last season, was killed in a drive-by shooting in Denver during the early hours of Jan. 1 after he attended a New Year’s Eve party.
Wearing Broncos jerseys with their late sons’ numbers, they introduced and they raised their clasped hands and waved to the crowd as they fought back tears.
The cheering was the loudest on a night that saw the Broncos take control of the game, fall into a tie and then win with a field goal on the last play of the game.
The women were joined by Broncos captains John Lynch, Jay Cutler and Jason Elam at midfield for the pregame coin toss and the emotion in Invesco Mile High was at a fever pitch.
The team flew Nash and Williams and some of their family members Saturday. They stayed at the Broncos’ team hotel and met their sons’ former teammates on Saturday.
“Really, it was more emotional than I thought it was going to be,” Williams told the Denver Post following the game.
“Judy was a great help to me, and I think I was to her. It was so special to see all of the guys.”
No tolerance? No way
Mizzou athlete remains on roster following domestic violence arrest
University of Missouri senior basketball player Darryl Butterfield was suspended from the team last week after being arrested for allegedly striking his ex-girlfriend in the face during a domestic dispute in Columbia.
St. Louis Rams offensive lineman Claude Terrell was charged with assaulting his wife on Tuesday in Houston – allegedly breaking her nose.
While Butterfield remains suspended, the Rams said goodbye to Terrell immediately.
Mizzou coach Mike Anderson has not made a final judgement whether to dismiss Butterfield from the team for good while he gathers further information on the incident. Meanwhile, Butterfield has been allowed to practice with the team.
On the surface, this seems like a sensible way of handling the situation. The problem is that Anderson and Mizzou had instilled a “zero tolerance” policy during the summer after forward DeMarre Carroll, a highly regarded transfer from Vanderbilt, was shot in the ankle outside of a club in Columbia after a disturbance.
Shortly after the policy was put in place, starting center Kalen Grimes was arrested for allegedly striking a man with the butt end of a shotgun outside a Dairy Queen in Florissant. A week later, Grimes was dismissed from the team.
He remains in school, but his career at Mizzou appears over. The statement had been made. No more bad behavior would be tolerated or else you would be gone.
This begs the question. With the new “zero tolerance” policy in place, shouldn’t Butterfield’s dismissal from the team be a done deal?
If Grimes has to pay this heavy price for his actions, shouldn’t Butterfield be joining him on the sidelines for the 2007-08 season? That would be consistent with the new policy.
Ironically, the act that started the entire process of Mike Anderson coming to Mizzou was a basketball player getting into trouble for going upside a woman’s head.
Remember the whole Ricky Clemons’ fiasco? Ricky’s misadventures in Columbia proved to be the catalyst for the demise of the Quin Snyder era at Mizzou, and the beginning of the Anderson era.
Terrell’s troubled times in St. Louis should have come much earlier.
Last week, he cussed head coach Scott Linehan on the field during practice. Yep, you read that correctly. He did that and still remained on the roster.
He was perpetually late to meetings and was fined weekly for not meeting his weight requirement – too fat not too skinny in case you wondered.
Already on probation following a 2006 charge of assault causing bodily damage to a family member – yep, his own kin – Terrell is now looking at some time in jail.
But he has time on his hands now. In fact, too much. He should have been cut last week, if not last summer.
