FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (
MyFoxBoston.com) -- An emotional promise was fulfilled Saturday night, one made in the memory of two young men who were part of the Holliston football program.
That promise was made in 2008, when two Holliston football team members died in the same week. Their teammates said they wanted to honor each by having their jerseys raised at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough.
For mobile app users, click here to view the photo gallery."It's an incredible family the Holliston football family," said football coach Todd Kiley.
And if there's one thing about this family, it's that they stick together, and not even the deaths of two of its members can pull it apart.
"It's really taking the inspiration provided by those two boys," Kiley said.
It was the start of the 2008 football season in Holliston when junior linebacker Joey Larracey died during the scrimmage from an undetected heart condition.
Days later, the team's honorary captain, 9-year-old Timmy O'Connell, lost his battle with leukemia.
Just because they were gone, though, did not make them any less a part of the team. In fact, the team wanted their lost teammates honored above all by having their jerseys hung at the high school football championship exhibit at Gillette Stadium. But that was no easy task.
"We had to get two state titles to accomplish that goal," Kiley said.
The first title put Larracey's #73 jersey on display at Gillette after the Holliston Panthers took the Super Bowl title in 2010. On Saturday, Timmy's #7 jersey was raised commemorating the team's state championship victory this past season.
"They've shared everything with him since he put on that shirt in 2007," said Timmy's mother Joanne O'Connell.
It was right after he got his cancer diagnosis, Kiley, the football coach who was also Timmy's gym teacher, made him a part of the team.
"I did it just as a point of trying to lift his spirits and lift the family's spirits a bit, get him involved with the team and the team took to him right away, he was great," Kiley said. "Little did I know how much he was going to mean to us."
It was about as much as having his jersey hung in Gillette means to his family.
"We always have it displayed in the house," Joanne O'Connell said. "To have it here is a big deal>"
"We'd have preferred to see him in it, but it keeps his memory alive and as a bereaved parent, that's what you want, you want your child to be remembered," Timmy's father Kevin O'Connell said.
Timmy will be remembered in Gillette for the rest of the year. His jersey will remain on display at the hall in Gillette until a new state champion is crowned next year.
