In Loving Memory of Austen Russell

Elementary School where he excelled on the playground at all sports and had the fastest mile time of all the students in the school. Austen excelled in soccer, basketball, and football, and multiple times was recognized as the best player on his team. His greatest passion was basketball, with a recent love of football. He started dribbling a basketball at age 3 and by the end of the day could dribble up to 50 times with each hand. He made "hoops" out of laundry baskets placed at either end of the hallway and would dribble a basketball between them for hours in a pretend game. He would proudly tell his parents, "I was BYU and I 'versed' Utah and beat them 102 to 86!" At age 4, his dad attached a basketball hoop to a door. He would meticulously keep track of how many shots he made compared to his attempts. He regularly made well over 500 shots daily. He played quarterback in flag football starting at age 5. He led his teams to three Super Bowl victories. After receiving his first Super Bowl trophy, he would proudly display it throughout the house and loved that it was almost as tall as he was. Last fall was Austen's first season in tackle football. With his dad as head coach, this 8-year-old starting quarterback led the Henderson Falcon Club U-8 team to another Super Bowl championship. Austen enjoyed following collegiate and professional sports with his dad and brothers. He rarely missed watching BYU basketball and football games on TV and would impatiently wait for his dad to get home from work so they could watch them together. When he was 5 years of age, his parents noticed his skills with numbers as he could recite entire season game scores for the Dallas Cowboys and BYU. He could also recall scores in the NBA finals and how many points the star players scored. He won every math bee in the second grade. His third grade teacher said that Austen was so gifted in math that he could work problems faster than she could derive the answer. Austen was beyond his years in all aspects of his life and continually blessed us with his smile, competitiveness and passion to succeed. Austen's greatest gift was the incredible family into which he was born, a loving and wise mother who is an extraordinary homemaker, an attentive father for whom spending time with his family is his greatest enjoyment, a home of love, prayer and teaching. Austen was blessed with two wonderful big brothers and two adoring little sisters. One of his favorite past times was shooting baskets with his brothers. He loved reading stories to Payton and playing Hide-And-Go-Seek with Maddie. Austen has completed his mortal probation with family temple covenants intact. O, how he is loved! Through the Atonement, his parents greatly anticipate a reunion with Austen and believe that families are forever. The family is deeply grateful to neighbors, friends and strangers who have reached out to them with so much love during this period of incredible grief.