I love the idea behind the annual celebration of Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry, the three UVA Football student-athletes who were murdered on Grounds in 2022, but I wonder if it’s awkward for the families, and not just because the ceremonies that are held in their guys’ memories might bring back memories of their final moments.
What could be awkward here is, we’re nearing the three-year mark since the Nov. 13, 2022, mass shooting that took the lives of Chandler, Davis and Perry, and the University of Virginia is still keeping wraps on the findings of a $1.5 million taxpayer-funded review of the school’s culpability, not just from the public, but from the families as well.
UVA released heavily redacted copies of two reports that comprised the review in March, a year and a half after the initial promised release date, and school officials are blaming the gunman, Christopher Darnell Jones, who pleaded guilty last November to the murders and to additional charges involving the shooting of a fourth football player, Mike Hollins, and another student, Marlee Morgan.
Jones, who is scheduled to be sentenced in November, “declined the University’s request to waive his federal student privacy protections,” UVA spokesman Brian Coy said in March, “therefore significant portions of the reports were required to be redacted.”
Meh, I mean, what is Chris Jones going to do here, if the reports were to be released without redactions, sue?
It’s felt, forever, that UVA is hiding something, but when it comes time to have the annual UVA Strong Day at Scott Stadium, complete with the families serving as honorary captains, the athletics department giving out T-shirts, the marketing people putting together a nice video tribute to run on the oversized scoreboard, we’re supposed to look past that.
“It’s been a very challenging week for a lot of folks within the program, especially folks that were here back in November ’22,” the football coach, Tony Elliott, said after Virginia’s 55-16 win over William & Mary on Saturday, the 2025 UVA Strong Day.
I feel for Elliott here, too, because the decision to withhold the details of the review into Nov. 13 is way above his pay grade – even if he is, on an order of magnitude, the highest-paid employee on Grounds.
Elliott was just a first-year head coach struggling to figure things out after a 37-7 loss to Pitt on Nov. 12 that started with Brennan Armstrong throwing back-to-back picksixes on the first two plays from scrimmage.
Elliott’s mind the next day was focused on getting his UVA Football team, which dropped to 3-7 on the season after the loss to Pitt, ready for Coastal Carolina in six days.
It’s fair to assume that he had no idea that a group of his guys had gone on a field trip to Washington, D.C., to see a play about the murder of Emmett Till and have dinner.
Elliott was among the first outside of those who were on the bus to be informed of what had happened.
Safe to say, his life hasn’t been the same since.
“Man, everybody wanted to have a day like today in remembrance of Lavell, Devon and D’Sean, and it’s so fitting, I was made aware that the last time UVA scored 55 points was a game that Lavel and D’Sean actually scored touchdowns in,” Elliott said after Saturday’s game.
That would have been the 55-15 UVA win over Abilene Christian on Nov. 21, 2020, the COVID year, when the number of observers allowed at Scott Stadium was limited to 250, plus members of the media.
ICYMI
- That was a wild last couple of minutes at the end of Virginia-Abilene Christian
- Report Card: Grading out Virginia’s 55-15 win over Abilene Christian
I was there; it was weird, football in a huge stadium with almost nobody there.
Davis scored on a 90-yard TD pass from Armstrong; Perry returned an INT 84 yards for a TD on the game’s final play to get the final score for the ‘Hoos to 55.
“What we wanted to do today was to just bring glory to those guys’ legacy,” Elliott said. “It’s still extremely difficult. Three years later, I know how hard it is for me. I can’t imagine, you know, what it’s like for the families.”
I can’t, either – the media was kept off the field for the pregame ceremony for the families, and I wouldn’t expect them to use the occasion of honoring their guys to vent their frustrations at the university.
I would imagine we’ll get more of their frustrations on the record in November, assuming the sentencing for Jones goes off, as scheduled, and UVA comes up with another excuse to not release the findings of the review into how its failures played a role in the world losing the light of three guys – Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry – who deserved better than what they got.
Support AFP
Share
Chris Graham
