Thursday marks three years since the UVA Football program experienced the unimaginable – the deaths of three student-athletes, Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry, who were among five UVA students shot as the bus they had taken to Washington, D.C., for a class field trip returned to Grounds, on Nov. 13, 2022.
With the transition in college football these days, only about 20 guys who were on the team three years ago are still around.
The coaches are still around, and the numbers 1 (Davis), 15 (Chandler) and 41 (Perry) are fixtures of the program.
Nov. 13 is, for obvious reasons, a tough day for UVA Football, and obviously more so for the families of Chandler, Davis and Perry – and Mike Hollins, a football player who survived the shooting, and returned to play in 2023, and Marlee Morgan, a manager with the track team, who was shot in the leg, and ended up returning to the track as a sprinter, and finished up her college career with a career-best 24.56-second run in the 200 meters in the spring.
“Tough week for a lot of folks. Still got about 20 players on the roster that were here in 2022, and so it’s going to be a tough time for them,” said coach Tony Elliott, whose focus when he woke up on the morning of Nov. 13, 2022, was on his team’s 3-7 start, and the 37-7 home loss to Pitt the day before that began with Brennan Armstrong throwing picksixes on the first two plays from scrimmage.
That ugly Pitt loss would end up being the 2022 season finale – given what happened, there was no way the final two games on the 2022 schedule, with Coastal Carolina and Virginia Tech, were going to be played.
It was hard enough getting back on the field for spring practice four months later, and then getting through the 2023 season, where every weekend, it seemed, was a first of some kind – first game since the shootings, first home game, first ACC game.
The group of seniors here in 2025 will, by and large, be the last to have been able to count Chandler, Davis and Perry as teammates – not counting for a guy or two or three who may be back next season with medical redshirts.
Which leads to the question: how does Elliott ensure that the memories of 1, 15 and 41 endure?
“I just thought that it’s important that those numbers are always visible within our program on the field to make sure that, one, we’re reminded of the legacy that we have to carry forward with Lavel, Devin and D’Sean, and then also for the fans, for the families, always an opportunity to see those numbers,” Elliott said.
The inclination may have been to retire those numbers from future use, but I love what EIlliott is doing in putting those numbers on the field.
The 1 is worn by two players – wideout Suderian Harrison, an alum, like Davis, of Woodland High School (Dorcester, S.C.), and James Jackson, a senior linebacker.
“Suderian Harrison went to the same high school as Lavel, and so he was chosen early on to wear that number,” Elliott said. “And then Keandre (Walker) was another young man that was here that wears number 1. And when he went down for the year, I wanted that number to be on the field, right? And so I asked him, would he be comfortable if I let somebody else wear that number for the season?
“There were two guys that I thought that would epitomize what it meant to wear that number, represent the program, represent Lavel and his family the right way. And that was either (Antonio) Clary or James Jackson. And so, James Jackson stepped up and said, hey, I want to do it, I want to wear that number. And obviously, he was an individual that was here, that was teammates with all three of those young men.”
The 15 is Hunter Osborne, a junior defensive lineman who transferred from Alabama in the offseason, and Dillon Newton-Short, a freshman wideout from Matoaca.
“Hunter is a new guy, but just the character that he has and his willingness to want to come here and be a part of this, considering where he was coming from, so he was a really good option there. And then also we had Dillon Newton-Short, a younger guy from in-state that through all of that, chose to come to Virginia even after the fact. So, I thought he would be a great representation.”
The 41 has been worn by senior placekicker Will Bettridge, a fellow alum, with Perry, of Gulliver Prep (Miami, Fla.), the past three years.
“We know the connection between Will Bettridge and D’Sean, high school teammates, and so he’s been wearing that number in honor of D’Sean and the Perry family since the tragedy happened,” Elliott said.
The schedule for Thursday, a practice day ahead of the road trip to Durham for this weekend’s game at Duke, was drawn up, Elliott said, to give the team “an opportunity to go over to the Chapel and observe a moment of silence, and then they’ll ring the bells, and then after that go down to the little memorial site outside the arts building and visit the tree, place some flowers, pay our respects, and then come back over here and get ready for practice.”
“That’s all optional, right? Because if we only got 20, that means we got about 100 guys that weren’t here. They own it. carry it with us, but they may not be fully understanding,” Elliott said. “So, it won’t be something that’ll be a team mandatory activity, but we will make sure during the time of the day that we don’t have anything football related so that anybody, staff or player that wants to pay their respect will have an opportunity to go over to the Chapel or go over to the memorial site, or just grieve and pay their respects in their own way. “
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Chris Graham
