Linebacker Aaron Casey to Wear '44' as First Recipient of George Taliaferro Award
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Image: Indiana University Athletics
Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)
On Tuesday the Indiana Hoosiers announced the establishment of the George Taliaferro Award in honor of the former IU football legend who was also a great pioneer for Civil Rights at IU and in Bloomington. Taliaferro was also the first Black player drafted by an NFL team. The Hoosiers have honored Taliaferro, who died in October of 2018 at the age of 91, with a statue in the George Taliaferro Plaza. They have also worn ‘44’ decals on their helmets several times after his death.
The first recipient of the award will be senior linebacker Aaron Casey, Tom Allen announce on Tuesday afternoon.
“We began a new tradition at Indiana and really excited about honoring George Taliaferro in a very specific way on our team. So we are going to award a George Taliaferro Award each year.” Allen explained. “It may be cumulative, based on the age of the recipient, to wear number 44 in honor of George Taliaferro and, Aaron Casey, he's gonna be our first recipient of that award.”
With over 100 players on college football rosters and a history that goes back over 150 years, it’s impossible to just retire numbers. IU wanted to honor Taliaferro by assigning his number to a player every season.
“So we thought it'd be a great honor to have someone were number 44 In our program, so that number could be could be seen out on the field every Saturday.” Indiana Director of Player Development Mike Pechac said in a video released by IU. “We're looking for a player in our program. That's obviously an upperclassman, a guy who's been here for three or four years has did an unbelievable job of representing our program and really doing the things that Mr. Taliaferro stood by. First of all, being a great teammate, being a great leader in the locker room, being a great student, taking care of all your business academically, loving your teammates. We talk about love each other every day.”
Aaron Casey was also featured in the video in front of the statue of Taliaferro and gave his thoughts on the honor as well.
“I was kind of shocked” Aaron Casey said. “Afterwards like I was, I don't really know why they wanted to pick me but obviously they must have saw something in me and I kind of represent what he stood for and and things behind them. So I was blessed and honored to represent him with number 44. To me, he just like had to fight through adversity so much back in the day with to where there's a lot of discrimination going on in the world. And he was able to overcome it and like pursue his dreams and become like the best he could be in that situation.“
Casey has played in 33 games for the Hoosiers making 45 total tackles and 5.5 tackles for loss in a reserve role. This season, Casey will get more of a chance to play as IU tries to replace the production lost from Micah McFadden.