07-23-2017, 04:59 PM
As the sun singed exposed skin and the aroma of the annual Vikings alumni cookout wafted over the practice fields, Latavius Murray watched his new team wrap up its final spring practice.
Standing there on the sideline at Winter Park, in his No. 25 jersey, his mind drifted elsewhere.
Back in upstate New York, where Murray spent the majority of his childhood, a tense murder trial was in its early stages in a powder keg of a courtroom. The victim of the November shooting in Syracuse was his best friend, Jonathan Diaz.
The trial brought painful memories rushing back. Murray was still trying to come to terms with his friend’s death seven months later. But he mustered a happy face at Winter Park while chatting with teammates. A couple hours later, when he sat down with a reporter at Bonfire in Eden Prairie, the mention of Diaz turned him somber.
http://www.startribune.com/latavius-murray-enters-vikings-season-pushing-the-pile-in-honor-of-late-friend/436072153/
Standing there on the sideline at Winter Park, in his No. 25 jersey, his mind drifted elsewhere.
Back in upstate New York, where Murray spent the majority of his childhood, a tense murder trial was in its early stages in a powder keg of a courtroom. The victim of the November shooting in Syracuse was his best friend, Jonathan Diaz.
The trial brought painful memories rushing back. Murray was still trying to come to terms with his friend’s death seven months later. But he mustered a happy face at Winter Park while chatting with teammates. A couple hours later, when he sat down with a reporter at Bonfire in Eden Prairie, the mention of Diaz turned him somber.
http://www.startribune.com/latavius-murray-enters-vikings-season-pushing-the-pile-in-honor-of-late-friend/436072153/