By the end of practice Aug. 17, it already was apparent to his coaches that sophomore Steven Taylor Coe would have started at defensive end and would have been a rotating play-carrier at receiver when Luling High School opened its football season Friday night at Kenedy.
“He had a great off-season and really was growing into his body,” coach Jeff Rochat said.
Coe, 15, died about an hour after a light practice in the relative cool of that Aug. 17 morning. He was the next-to-last of six middle school, high school and college football players who collapsed and later died at practice or just after it from July 19 through Aug. 18.
Data compiled by the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North Carolina shows that 73 high school players, 10 collegians and one professional or semipro had died in the previous 10 seasons, 1991-2000, of what are termed “indirect causes.” UNC researchers define indirect causes as those injuries caused by exertion or by a secondary complication.
In the past, most of those deaths went unnoticed beyond their state, county, city or town, where their impact would be tremendous. Hundreds turned out in small towns to mourn two of these recent deaths. Some kids in the Houston neighborhood where one boy lived are reluctant to play football. One player quit the Luling team after Coe’s death, and Coe’s cousin considered quitting.
The Aug. 1 death of Minnesota Vikings offensive tackle Korey Stringer and the Aug. 3 death of Northwestern University defensive back Rashidi Wheeler created national attention that linked isolated incidents into a chain of tragedy. The spotlight on a professional football player who died of heatstroke and on a player at a prominent university who died from what a coroner has ruled an exercise-induced asthma attack has cast an eerie sidelight on deaths in Indiana, Georgia, Florida and Texas.
“I’ve been doing this 25 years as [a paramedic] and firefighter and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Dave Elliott, who responded to the call on Travis Stowers, 17, the Michigantown, Ind., high school player who collapsed the same day as Stringer. “In this day and age, when we are supposedly healthier, with all the technology and medical information available, why are we dying?”
It is a question similar to what Thornton Wilder asked in his novel “The Bridge of San Luis Rey,” trying to find an explanation for the deaths of five travelers when the “finest bridge in all Peru” collapsed July 20, 1714. Hundreds had crossed the rope bridge every day for a century before the collapse.
“Why did this happen to those five?” Wilder has one of his characters ask.
“If there were any plan in the universe at all, if there were any pattern in a human life, surely it could be discovered latent in those lives so mysteriously cut off,” the author continued. “Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan.”
With the exception of Stringer, a Pro Bowl selection last season, these six all were playing for love, not money. They all died in connection with preseason practices, some in conditioning workouts preceding the start of formal practice. With the exception of Wheeler, they all collapsed when the heat index reached levels demanding “extreme caution.” They all died in preparing themselves for an often brutal sport.
The official causes of death have been varied, from asthma to heatstroke to an enlarged heart, or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a condition Chicago Rush Medical School cardiologist Lloyd Klein calls “the No. 1 cause of death in high school sports.”
The common ground is a football field. If there is a pattern to these deaths, it is a gridiron.
The first was University of Florida freshman Eraste Autin, 18, who collapsed July 19 and died July 25. The youngest was Jasper Country Middle School 8th-grader Jamarious Derez Bennett, 13, who collapsed and died Aug. 15 in Monticello, Ga. The last was Lamar High School sophomore Leonard Carter II, 14, who collapsed and died Aug. 18 in Houston.
Carter’s father, Leonard Carter, said he had been contacted by “a representative” of Linda Will, Wheeler’s mother, who has sued Northwestern, blaming the school, its coach and university personnel for her son’s death. Will’s is the only lawsuit filed in any of these cases.
“I am not angry about the sport of football,” Carter said. “I am angry about the recent tragedies. It’s happening too often.”
An autopsy by the Harris County, Texas, medical examiner showed Carter died of an enlarged heart, and heat was said to have played a “minimal role” in his death.
“The stress of heat exacerbates this condition,” Klein said.
Stowers was a 6-foot, 220-pound junior and reserve offensive lineman. His death Aug. 1, a day after collapsing at practice when the heat index was 103, has been attributed to a brain aneurysm by the principal and athletic director of his school, Clinton Central High School. Frances Kelly, deputy chief coroner of Marion County, whose office performed the autopsy, insists that finding is inaccurate.
“An MRI showed no evidence of an aneurysm,” Kelly said. “The results are pending. We are being cautious, but we don’t expect to find anything. If not, we will call it heatstroke.”
Leonard Carter said kids “all over the neighborhood” have been scared to play football since his son died. That neighborhood, in southwest Houston, is about 140 miles and a century removed from Luling, where you can pick up the trail of a tragic summer.
Coping with tragedy
The rain moved into central Texas last Sunday, bringing flash floods and a general break from a month of 100-degree temperatures on these flatlands edging the coastal plain. Only when the sun found an occasional break in the cloud cover were there reminders of the scorching days past.
It was thickly humid but breezy and almost pleasant as the Luling High School football team went through one of its final practices before the season opener. A misting machine stood at one end of the practice field, and bottles of water had been placed on the ground near each of several groups of players drilling with second-year head coach Rochat and one of his 10 assistant coaches.
The team’s preparations had fallen behind because a couple of practices and a scrimmage were canceled to deal with Coe’s death. The lost time is a searing reminder of the pain that lingers from what happened one of those days past.
“I can’t really pinpoint a day when we will be over this,” Rochat said. “We have kids in different phases of the process. Every time we do something for the first time without Steven, it’s going to be emotional.”
Luling, 50 miles south of Austin and 50 miles northeast of San Antonio, remains the Texas of myth and legend, of “The Last Picture Show” and “Friday Night Lights,” of amusingly named high school teams like the Cuero Gobblers, Port Lavaca Sand Crabs, Progreso Red Ants and Hutto Hippos. It is the Texas of oil and barbecue and football as the glue that binds communities.
A Web site will tell you Luling, pop. 5,066, is known for its Watermelon Thump festival and its decorated oil derricks, like the one with a cutout of a quarterback who rocks through a throwing motion each time the derrick pumps. It is a town in which 60 percent of the school district’s 1,600 students get free or reduced-price lunches, and there are 11 salaried football coaches working with 47 varsity and JV players.
The oil business has pretty much dried up on Luling, where empty stores dot the main street. What remains is the pall of an odious smell from the natural gas flared off when pressure builds inside the wells.
“You smell that stuff today?” Luling schools superintendent George Bujnoch asks. “I can’t smell it anymore.”
Bujnoch has been more concerned about the pall from the death of Steven Coe, who was known to the school as Steven Taylor, which his father says is a mistake. “I guess they just forgot the Coe,” the father said.
The boy, his two sisters and his parents, Gloria Taylor and Steven Taylor Coe, had moved closer to the school this year so there would be less driving involved in getting the children to their sports. Their double-wide trailer sits on bricks on a muddy lot across the street from distillate tanks and a rusting, idle oil derrick.
“The kids were so excited to be moving,” Gloria Taylor said in the first interview Coe’s parents have done since their son died. Their words occasionally were muffled by the rumble of a train passing two blocks away.
The family had been in their new home less than two weeks when a friend drove Steven Coe back from practice about 9:30 a.m. Aug. 17. It was the Luling team’s 10th day of practice and the players wore just shirts, shorts and helmets because they had a scrimmage scheduled the next day.
Gloria Taylor, who works for a Job Corps program in San Marcos, said she was home when Steven returned. They had talked for 10 minutes, she said, before her 6-foot-2-inch, 190-pound son “just stopped talking. It was like he went into a deep sleep and couldn’t wake up.”
She called 911 at 10:09 a.m. When paramedics arrived, they found the boy had stopped breathing and had no pulse.
The autopsy found hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Toxicology screens were negative, according to Garland Grice, a justice of the peace in Luling.
Coe had been cleared to play after a physical examination two weeks earlier. Coe also played basketball and baseball and had spent some of this summer working with his father, a contractor.
“He had no heart problem and never collapsed before,” Gloria Taylor said. “If there was anything wrong with him, he would have told me.”
An Aug. 21 memorial service for Coe drew what a San Antonio newspaper called “hundreds of mourners” to the Luling Civic Center.
“It makes it easier to know people loved him as much as we did,” Gloria Taylor said. “So many kids around here are just lost. We know ours wasn’t.”
Like many mothers, Gloria Taylor did not like to watch her son play football “because it is such a hard contact sport.” Her husband, who said he played football in high school, thought he might go to some of the Luling High School games this year by himself.
“I’m not going to watch football with her now,” he said, referring to his wife.
So, why?
David Autin, a Lafayette, La., urologist, played offensive line from 1970-72 at what then was called the University of Southwestern Louisiana. He gave up football his senior year to concentrate on pre-med studies.
Autin’s son, Eraste (pronounced A-Ross), a 6-2, 255-pound fullback, was one of the University of Florida’s top recruits. Although most freshmen in big-time college football programs are held out of action a year, Autin had been given a good chance to play this fall for Florida, the nation’s top-ranked team in many preseason polls.
Autin had just completed his 10th workout with fellow freshmen, which preceded full-team workouts, when he collapsed July 19. The heat index was 102. He died July 25 at Shands Hospital at the University of Florida.
At the family’s request, no autopsy was performed and heatstroke is being called the probable cause of death. A toxicology examination showed the only drug or supplement in his system was laudanosine, a sedative given to patients on a respirator.
“I know why he died,” Autin said in response to a question about why no autopsy was done. “I’m not prepared to say.
“He was a perfect specimen of health. He drank milk, water and Gatorade. No Pepsi, Coke or any carbonated beverages.”
From what he called “independent, isolated, retrospective accounts” of teammates and others near Eraste Autin the day he collapsed, Autin has been able to re-create his son’s mood and movements before and after practice ended.
Some players noticed Autin was “somewhat aggravated and agitated” and not the vocal, rah-rah leader he had been in earlier practices.
“One player told me he had asked Eraste at practice, `Are you delirious?”‘ Autin said.
After leaving the practice field, Autin ran “100 or 200 yards” past the locker room.
“That would indicate he was delirious or something was wrong with him,” Autin said.
He kept running, holding his shirt and glasses in his right hand and shoes in the left, swaying from side to side.
A passing motorist who noticed Autin’s behavior first thought he was joking with nearby students. When the motorist, a local dentist, saw in his rearview mirror the students weren’t paying attention, he stopped his car and walked back toward the player.
“As Eraste started to collapse, the motorist received him in his arms and laid him on the street,” Autin said. “Eraste was speaking out loud, but to no one in particular, saying, `I’ve got to keep going, I’ve got to keep running.'”
His son was taken to the Shands emergency room, where, his father said he was told, “he was talking coherently, asking appropriate questions and following commands. His temperature went down [from a reported 108] to 101. There were a series of things that happened after that I don’t want to talk about.”
Eraste Autin suffered a heart attack the night he was admitted to the hospital and later lapsed into a coma. He was on life support until he died.
Autin said he has “no intention at this point in time to sue anybody.”
The toxicology report showed needle puncture marks in Autin’s left thigh. Asked about them, Autin said: “That’s a good question. Ask Shands Hospital why he has those.”
Shands spokeswoman Jennifer Porter said “the puncture wounds were received during the course of his treatment at Shands.”
A request to speak with Florida coach Steve Spurrier and some of his players about Eraste Autin was turned down Aug. 22 by Norm Carlson, an assistant athletic director.
“It’s not fair to the family for us to keep talking about the situation,” Carlson said. “Questions around here stopped a couple weeks ago.”
“You can’t label every football death as associated with heatstroke,” Autin said. “A lot needs to be learned from each individual case.”
What is necessary?
Rashidi Wheeler, 22, almost had completed the workout, a form of physical fitness test all Northwestern football players have to pass, with requirements varying for position. The players take the test wearing no more than shorts, shirt and football shoes. Wheeler had passed the test a year earlier.
This time, on an 80-degree Aug. 3 at a field near Lake Michigan, he had done 10 repeats of a 100-yard run in 15 seconds or less per run, with 15 seconds rest between repeats. He had done eight repeats of 80 yards in 13 seconds or less, with 13 seconds rest between repeats. He had done six repeats of 60 yards in 10 seconds or less, with 12 seconds rest between repeats.
What remained were four repeats of 40 yards in less than seven seconds, with 11 seconds rest between repeats. Midway through the first, the 6-foot, 212-pound Wheeler collapsed. He was pronounced dead soon after at Evanston Hospital.
John Smith, who tried out for the Dallas Cowboys and has coached Olympic champions in the 100 meters, 400 meters and 400-meter hurdles, wondered about both the intensity and the purpose of the workout when its details were read to him. Smith had more questions when told Wheeler, a chronic asthmatic, and some other teammates had used dietary supplements containing the stimulants ephedrine and caffeine before the workout.
“That is a very challenging workout that might have been possible if a kid had been instructed to work out year-round,” said Smith, two-time U.S. champion and former world record-holder at 400 meters. “Was it something the young man had evolved to and could handle? Maybe that philosophy of workout is OK, but not if you don’t know what these kids are taking.
“The kids are not taken into consideration as individuals. Human beings become pawns like gladiators. May the best one stand up.”
Smith said athletes required to run in short bursts and then rest, as football players do, would not benefit from the workout Wheeler was doing.
“To me, that workout was for someone dealing with endurance, like a 1,500-meter runner,” Smith said. “That type of athlete isn’t carrying pounds and pounds on his back to where the heart gets stressed out.”
A life-and-death call
Leonard Carter, an associate teacher of English as a second language, said he ran sprints with his son, Leonard II, frequently over the summer to prepare the boy for the upcoming season. At the same time, they were working together in preparing Leonard II to raise his grades from “80 to 87.”
Carter said his son, 5-6 and 150 pounds, also worked out at a fitness center, was a lifeguard at a local pool and had played football since age 8. He had transferred to Lamar High School this summer after playing tailback and defensive back on a Westside High School freshman team that was 8-2 in 2000.
On Aug. 18, father and son ate breakfast at a McDonald’s before the father dropped him off around 8:30 a.m. for a practice that was a scrimmage. The father went home to await the call to pick up his son.
“We take our kids to school to keep them occupied,” Carter said. “You don’t expect life and death.”
The call he received would be life-and-death. His son had collapsed at 11:15 a.m., reportedly after making two long runs. He was pronounced dead at Texas Children’s Hospital at 12:58 p.m. Two days later, the medical examiner called the cause of death an enlarged heart.
“I have no comment on the autopsy,” Leonard Carter said.
Leonard Carter II was buried four years after his mother, Darlene Hawkins Carter, who had died of breast cancer. He was the couple’s only child.
“I remember how strong he was, at age 10, when my wife passed away,” Carter said. “It was like my wife had prepared him to take care of me in that troubling time. He handled my wife’s death better than I did.
“This was a child every parent would want their child to be.”
What is dangerous?
Unwavering faith has allowed Patrick and Lawandra Bennett to cope with the Aug. 15 death of their 13-year-old son, 8th-grader Jamarious Derez Bennett, who collapsed about 20 minutes into the third practice of the season for the Jasper County Middle School football team in Monticello, Ga. The heat index that day was 97.
“The parents have been an inspiration to me,” said Jay Brinson, the county schools superintendent.
Patrick Bennett always worried the boy they called Derez, 5 feet and 100 pounds, would get hurt riding the go-karts and dirt bikes that were presents from his grandfather, not by playing football. He had told Derez in vain to slow down as he tooled around the hamlet of Shady Dale, pop. 180, where they lived in a double-wide trailer.
“He liked football. He loved motorcycles,” said Patrick Bennett, a machine operator. “He was doing something he liked. It was God’s will.”
There is just one thing that bothers Patrick Bennett. Three days before Derez died, the boy practically begged his father to go ride motorcycles around the block and Patrick said it would have to wait.
“It was the last thing he ever asked me to do with him and I didn’t do it,” Patrick Bennett said.
Bennett and his wife, also a machine operator at a different company, had worked late shifts and still were asleep when a coach called to say their son had “fallen out” at practice and was taken to Jasper Memorial Hospital.
Upon reaching the hospital, they were told he had died. The state medical examiner ruled after an autopsy the death was caused by a non-genetic malfunction in his left coronary artery, preventing enough blood from reaching the heart.
Patrick Bennett said Derez, who began playing football a year ago, was in good health and was taking no dietary supplements.
“He could outrun me,” the father said.
According to Brinson, the team was doing non-contact agility drills when Bennett told coach Rick Shepler he didn’t feel good. The coach told Bennett to remove his helmet, go to the “water tree” and get some water. When the coach saw Bennett was lying down, he sent a trainer over to check him. The trainer first took his pulse.
“He was talking and showed no signs of heat-related illness,” Brinson said. “Almost in midsentence, he fell over backward in a complete collapse.”
An ambulance was called on a cellular phone. While waiting for the paramedics, the trainer did two rounds of CPR. Later efforts to revive Bennett in the ambulance and the hospital emergency room were futile.
“He had passed a physical,” Brinson said. “Unless someone was looking for this particular thing because of past symptoms of chest distress, they wouldn’t find it.”
Patrick Bennett has heard about the other football deaths this summer.
“I didn’t pay much attention to them [until his son died],” he said. “I know this has happened before, but so many players in one year?”
Superintendent Brinson has figured out there are so many football players in this country, the odds are some may die while playing or practicing.
“You always wonder if there is a pattern, some kind of connection,” he said.
Good from bad
“A new bridge of stone has been built in place of the old, but the event has not been forgotten.”
“The Bridge of San Luis Rey”
Thursday afternoon, Steve Minor of the Austin Heart cardiology practice administered free echocardiograms to 110 athletes at Luling High School. The test, done with a portable machine yet to be approved by the American College of Cardiology, can help detect hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
“If you compare it to a physical by a retired family physician, this [portable machine] test picks up on HCM much more often,” said cardiologist George Rodgers, president of the Austin Heart Foundation, which funded the Luling tests and others in the area.
“Less than 5 percent of the time would we miss it. Anyone with abnormalities would be referred for a full echocardiogram.”
The full test, on a stationary machine, costs between $800 and $1,500, according to Rodgers. Using the portable machine brings the cost down to $10.
“These tests are the good thing to come out of this,” said Luling superintendent Bujnoch.
“Unfortunately, it’s too late for Steven.”
As his team prepared for the season opener, Steven Taylor Coe’s football gear remained in his locker in the dank, cement bunker of a building that is the school’s old gym. Thursday, coach Rochat said, the team was to put a green stripe down the middle of his helmet and a green “L” on each side, as if Coe were going to wear it against Kenedy. The rest of the players will have a green decal with Coe’s uniform number, 80, on the back of their helmets.
“We’re all in this together,” Rochat said, “and we’re all going to hold hands to get through it together.”
Maybe that is what is meant by the sign on the “Eagle Iron Works,” the school’s antiquated weight room. “AN EAGLE MUST,” the sign says, “play with pain.”
