Tennessee safety Todd Kelly Jr. swill wear jersey No. 24 this season to honor Zaevion Dobson, the Knoxville high school football player who was killed in December in an effort to save others.
Kelly a junior, had been wearing No. 6. Fellow defensive back Darrell Miller, a sophomore, had been wearing No. 24.
Dobson, who attended Knoxville’s Fulton High, was 15 when he was killed in what police believed was a retaliatory gang shooting. Dobson was a bystander who dove on top of three girls to shield them from the bullets.
Last month, Dobson won the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPYs; his mother and two brothers accepted the award in his honor.