By Brittany Burke
When the word “family” comes to mind, a person’s first thought would normally be a mother, father, brother, sister or grandparents; a person or persons tied to you because of a blood relation. However, sometimes the strongest bond comes from the members of a family which aren’t predestined, but chosen.
The CCSU football team’s bonds of brotherhood were strengthened as one of its own was killed, along with a fellow CCSU student early Saturday morning in a car accident.
It didn’t matter that Rich Royster had no blood brothers in the locker room, his death affected not only the football team, but the entire athletics department.
“This is a very tight knit group, it is a very tight campus, a very tight family,” said Athletic Director Paul Schlickmann in a Sunday afternoon press conference.
“That culture stems from Dr. Miller, our president. He said it well yesterday when he said, when things like this happen, it affects us as a family. So we react as a family, we grieve as a family, we come together as a family, so we will continue to do just that and work together. Yesterday we lost two members of that family, and there is no doubt that that hurts.”
Royster, 20, and a New York native, was a junior in the psychology department, while Brittany Mariani, 24, was a senior psychology major. Both students were killed early Saturday morning on the Charter Oak Bridge. Royster spent two years as a Blue Devil, helping his teammates to two consecutive NEC Championship wins. Royster, a defensive lineman, transferred from Iona when the school cut its football program.
Despite his short time at CCSU, his death meant the Blue Devils lost one of their own. As a way of coping with his untimely death, the team has come together to lean on one another and support each other through this difficult start of the semester.
“Everybody on the football team is from very different backgrounds and very different situations, but we all had that bond that happened on the football field,” said senior captain Mike Allison.
“You consider anyone that you ever played with one of your brothers, and to lose one of your brothers is really something that hurts, but to have every single one of these guys as your brother to lean on and talk about the good times, and look forward and keep his name in motion in the CCSU family is going to be something special.”
In a press conference held by the CCSU Athletics Department, the word family was emphasized to describe the man that was lost. Royster wasn’t just part of a unit, categorized by the title as defensive lineman; he was a member of a family and will be remembered and honored as such.
“Toward the end of the season, my father would sit together with his father in the crowd and they would talk a lot,” said senior captain Dominique Rose. “They built a pretty intensive relationship amongst each other. So our families were close. We were under the assumption that we were related, so ever since then we would call each other cousins, and that’s just the first memory that came to my mind.”
As a member of the family, Royster will be remembered as a quiet, intense force, both on the field and in the CCSU community. The number 94 will be honored each time a Blue Devil steps on to the football field. His passion will be carried on in the play of his teammates and is something that will always be remembered.
“Rich was a fantastic teammate, loyal Blue Devil,” said head coach Jeff McInerney. “His love for the game was second to none and his love for his teammates was second to none. He’ll be missed, his spirit and character will live on through our football program, and his memory will be honored every day.”
When asked to remember the type of person he was, his teammates were noticeably somber and stoic, still trying to comprehend and deal with the loss.
However, it is the memories of watching him play scrabble, recalled by Alondre Rush, and the way he would always walk into morning meetings with blaring music, inevitably waking up his sleeping teammates, that filled the blue room with laughs.
Royster was an intelligent man with an insurmountable amount of passion for his game, and it is that passion that truly stood out to his teammates and made them work harder during the season. It is that same passion that will be remembered in the toughest of times to come.
“His legacy will continue to live on as someone who fits the perfect mold of a student athlete, not just at Central Connecticut, but across the country,” said Rush.