At two months old, Derek Joseph Olivier was wearing a baptismal suit when the priest welcomed Olivier to a new life in Christ.
Almost 20 years later, the suit was still treasured by his parents, tucked away in the closet until Olivier’s funeral Oct. 3.
“His baptism suit was in the casket with him,” said his father, Joseph Olivier Jr. “When he passed away, I took it out of the closet and asked the priest if I can put it in the casket with him, so we did … It was a tragedy.”
On Sept. 27, two days before his 20th birthday, Olivier, a freshman cornerback for Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock, was fatally shot across from campus while helping a friend change a tire.
“He smiled all the time, he was a team player,” Joseph Olivier said. “He died as a team player. A guy asked him to help him; he was walking back to his dorm and helped him change a tire.”
Police have made no arrests.
Growing up in the southern Louisiana town of New Iberia, Olivier was a lifelong member of St. Nicholas Church in Lydia. Every Sunday, Olivier and his father would attend 8 a.m. Mass.
“At first, it was rough getting him up for church, a typical teenager,” Joseph Olivier said. “But as he got older especially, he believed in going to church.”
Olivier attended religious education and at 16, he was confirmed in the Church and joined the Holy Name Society. Olivier graduated from New Iberia High School in May and was a junior knight in the Knights of Peter Claver, said his mother, Alma Olivier.
“He lived out his faith,” said Anna Breaux, director of religious education at St. Nicholas. “It didn’t matter who you were, he was there to help you.”
Though football, classes and fishing took up much of his time, Olivier made sure to go to a Christian church service every Thursday with his teammates at Arkansas Baptist College, his father said.
“He just believed in serving the Lord,” Joseph Olivier said. “The faith was there.”
Patricia Olivier, a distant relative and youth group coordinator for the Church, said more than 1,000 people attended his Oct. 3 funeral, with his college teammates lining the walls of the church.
“It was such an outpouring of love,” Patricia Olivier said. “He was the quietest young man and it’s just terrible … but as Catholics, we have to believe God has a plan for him.”
Olivier enjoyed dancing to the Cajun-rooted Zydeco music, despite the fact that “he had no rhythm at all,” and playing jokes on his father, Joseph Olivier said.
In the days before his death, Olivier was able to enjoy a taste of home, when his family shipped him his favorite foods, including white beans and turkey necks, Joseph Olivier said. As the youngest of three children, family was everything to Olivier, which is why he chose to attend a college not too far from home, his father said.
Though Olivier was starting his adult life away at college, his heart was never far from God or his family.
“When he left to go to college, we were going to text each other every night to (remind) each other to say prayers,” his father said. “I’d text him and say, ’Say your prayers.’ He’d reply, ’I just did.’ We never missed a night saying it.”
