FIU family remembers student Kendall Berry

By Deborah O’Neil MA ‘09

The life of FIU student-athlete Kendall Berry was honored Monday at FIU with memories and tears, prayer and song, and repeated calls to stand in solidarity against violence.

A crowd of more than 1,000 gathered in U.S. Century Bank Arena to remember the 22-year-old FIU football player who was killed on campus March 25. In the audience were his parents Derrick and Mellissicia Spillman, the FIU football team and coaches, fellow students and many in the FIU community who came to show support for his family and friends.

“To our extended family here at FIU, this world is one big family,” said Al Dotson, chair of the FIU Board of Trustees. “My quote from my friend Martin Luther King Jr. is that we have to learn to live together as brothers and sisters or die as fools. We are family. The family is hurting. What affects one family member affects us all.”

FIU football player Marquis Rolle recalled how Berry was the first person he met at FIU. “Since that day I knew he was going to be my ace for as long as I lived. Not only was KB my teammate, my roommate and my best friend, KB was like a brother to me.”

The memorial featured a video highlighting Berry’s football career at FIU. The music in the video is “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke, one of Berry’s favorite songs.

Football Coach Mario Cristobal described Berry as a “difference maker” who made a terrific comeback after a serious injury in Fall 2008. Berry could have given up on football, Cristobal said, but that’s not how he was raised.

“Every single day this young man, and he wasn’t used to injury, he was finding a way to get back and get better,” the coach said. “When Kendall got knocked down, he got back up and came back stronger than ever.”

Berry showed the same perseverance with his studies in the College of Education, said FIU academic advisor Marcus Bright, who knew Berry from the Student Athlete Academic Center. He recalled one evening last semester when Berry showed up in the library to work on a paper.

“Around 10:30, I’m starting to get a little tired. I’m about ready to go home,” Bright said. “Kendall, he’s still going. Now he is motivating me to stay. By about midnight I’m out of there. Kendall stayed until the library closed at 1 .m. That’s called positive peer pressure.”

Berry’s father thanked his friends and teammates for sharing their memories. “What’s doing us a whole lot of good is to know this part of our son,” Spillman said. “We would like to know the good times you had with him. We can tell you some of the good times he had with us. We can fill in the blanks so everybody can understand truly what God gave us.”

His father urged forgiveness and healing. “I know this will be hard to believe but that was the very first fight that kid got in. The very first one,” Spillman said. “It only takes one time people.”

President Mark Rosenberg called on the audience to join hands “in solidarity against senseless violence.”

Rosenberg’s message was echoed by Bright. “Soon and very soon we will demand a stop to the violence that terrorizes so many of our communities and takes so many lives,” he said.

Cristobal urged everyone to remember Berry by emulating his positive attitude and selflessness: “We need to honor Kendall Berry every single day of our lives.”