The course is called Legislative Advocacy, and for each student the semester-long assignment is to draft an initiative that might make a difference in the real world.
Sean Wieber is in his third and final year at Chicago-Kent College of Law, and as fate would have it–Wieber and fate are old friends–his professor informed him he would be the first to present a proposal to the class. He had all of a week to prepare.
Wieber’s background suggested to professor William Kling that he might consider Chicago’s 2016 Olympics bid as his topic.
Wieber was the Northwestern free safety who had caused the last-minute fumble that led to the Wildcats’ 54-51 instant-classic victory over Michigan in 2000.
The game was played at Ryan Field, named for insurance mogul Patrick Ryan, head of Chicago’s Olympics bid.
And Wieber is an assistant to former Gov. James R. Thompson at the Winston & Strawn law firm.
If you want help getting legislation passed, well, Thompson knows everybody.
Wieber researched the topic, but it seemed too broad, nothing a law-school student could sink his baby teeth into. He wanted a new topic. What he really wanted was more time.
Two days after he received the assignment, in the middle of the night, Sean Wieber woke up with one thought:
Of course.
A fateful date
Rashidi Wheeler died while Sean Wieber held his hand on a lonely practice field at Northwestern. Oh, the doctors and the lawyers will tell you he wasn’t officially declared dead until after he arrived at Evanston Hospital.
But deep down, Wieber knew.
“He asks for water,” he recalled. “We get him some water. He’s on his back and we’re giving him water. I’m holding his hand, encouraging him, then in a matter of minutes he bites his tongue. He starts bleeding. He’s saying he’s dying. He’s in full cardiac arrest.
“As I’m holding his hand, he raises his left arm in the air real forceful, like the last jolt. It was like a last gasp. I’m calm in a sense, but I’m sitting there crying because you feel absolutely helpless.
“Here’s a guy who’s a teammate. I’d been with him for four years, he’s like family, we were in meetings together, we were defensive backs, we were close.”
It was Aug. 3, 2001, and what would happen thereafter would produce enough anger, bitterness and lawsuits to reduce a lovely, promising landscape to scorched earth.
Could a flower ever grow out of those ashes? It could. It would take a while, but it could.
The R.A.W. Initiative
Here is a question for which there is no answer: Had a defibrillator been on hand that day at Northwestern, would Rashidi Wheeler be alive today?
The Cook County medical examiner said Wheeler died of exercise-induced bronchial asthma.
Northwestern argued that Wheeler’s use of dietary supplements containing the now-banned stimulant ephedra led to his death.
All Wieber knows is that Wheeler’s heart stopped beating while he held his teammate in his arms.
“I’ve chosen to go into the legal profession, not the medical profession, but what I do know is that [a defibrillator] wasn’t present that day,” Wieber said. “At this point, it’s kind of irrelevant if it would have saved Rashidi’s life. What we do know is that it’s going to save somebody’s life.”
How the germ of an idea that had come to Wieber in the night found its way onto a fast track toward legislation is a study in determination, connections and, yes, fate.
When Wieber began researching Illinois law, he learned that a 2005 statute required automated external defibrillators to be on the premises of all publicly or privately owned indoor physical fitness facilities.
But there was nothing in the statute about outdoor facilities. Within days, Wieber drew up the R.A.W. Initiative, named after Rashidi Ayodele Wheeler, which sought to have AEDs on site at all public or private outdoor athletic facilities in Illinois, including grade schools and high schools.
Kling suggested Wieber work on it in real time, in earnest.
Through Thompson, Wieber got in touch with Rep. Daniel Burke (D-Chicago), the sponsor of the original law. Burke’s initial idea had been for the 2005 bill to cover both indoor and outdoor facilities, but in the sometimes frustrating ways of Springfield, it had to be whittled down to get passed.
And then Burke’s phone rang last month.
“It was perfect synergy,” he said. “Certainly very unfortunate circumstances have led to this point where we’d like to know that kids on the practice field are going to be protected in some sense. But the timing of this is great.”
What had been hypothetical in a Kent classroom now had real momentum. And a face.
Rashidi Wheeler’s.
`You’re my pace man’
The numbers don’t really capture the pain and the trepidation of Northwestern’s conditioning test under the late Randy Walker, who was the Wildcats’ coach in 2001: Ten 100-yard dashes, eight 80s, six 60s, four 40s, in that order.
The defensive backs had to run the 100s in 15 seconds or less, the 80s in 13 seconds or less, the 60s in 10 seconds or less and the 40s in seven seconds or less.
The recovery time between each sprint was the same as the target time. In other words, you had 15 seconds to rest between 100s, 13 seconds between 80s and so on. It was brutal, but it proved whether the players were in shape for the upcoming season.
Wieber called it a marathon of sprints. Some players spent sleepless nights worrying about the test.
Many major football programs have similar grueling yardsticks, but because results of the workout were sent to NU coaches, Northwestern was in violation of NCAA rules governing voluntary practices. But nobody on the field that day was thinking about the legality of the session. They were thinking about finishing.
“The day he died, Rashidi came up to me, hugged me and said, `You’re my pace man’–by that meaning he was going to be right next to me,” Wieber said. “He knew if he kept up with me, I wasn’t going to burn him out. There was a lot of stress involved with having to complete that test.”
With just three 40s left, Wieber saw that the 22-year-old Wheeler was unable to continue. This wasn’t unusual. Since Wieber had known him, Wheeler had struggled with conditioning drills. He also had asthma.
But Wieber’s first emotion was anger. Walker’s rule was that if you didn’t finish the test in the prescribed time, you lost your starting job during preseason camp in Kenosha. Wieber knew having Wheeler as the starting strong safety was best for Northwestern. He was angry.
“But teammates take care of teammates,” he said. “I remember clapping and saying, `Come on, come on, come on, Rashidi, you can do it.’ It wasn’t just me. It was more the people who were observing.”
So many things conspired against Wheeler and his teammates that day. A terrible storm had blown through Chicago the day before, leaving Northwestern’s football fields a muddy mess. The conditioning test would have to be conducted on a field-hockey field on NU’s lakefill, far from the comfort zone of the players and the staff. Far, too, from better medical equipment and attention.
Flooding from the storm had knocked out an emergency telephone near the field. Cell-phone reception was erratic by the lake, and it took an agonizingly long time before someone was able to connect to 911. Then the EMTs couldn’t find the field.
Adding to the confluence of problems, no one was sure what was happening to Wheeler. Believing he might simply be hyperventilating, the training staff had him blow into a bag in an attempt to control his breathing.
The bizarre scene was captured on video by the Northwestern staff and found its way onto national television. The video showed a few people huddled around Wheeler while players continued with the conditioning test. It looked callous. It looked cold-hearted.
“The people who were running the test didn’t know what was going on [with Rashidi],” Wieber said. “There were several people who were tired, exhausted. It’s a natural thing. Some people stand up, hands over head. Some people prefer to lie down. There were several people that day who collapsed when they finished the test. The EMTs weren’t sprinting. I wanted them to sprint.”
Wheeler said he was dying. That’s what athletes say when they’re exhausted. The words have lost their meaning.
“When someone really is dying, what do you say other than `I’m dying’?” Wieber said.
The head trainer performed CPR on Wheeler. So did the EMTs.
Nothing.
From walk-on to starter
Wieber, from Sandusky, Ohio, had scholarship offers from smaller colleges, but he wanted to play big-time football. He put together a highlight video and sent copies of it with a list of his high school accomplishments to college coaches. Gary Barnett, Northwestern’s coach at the time, offered him a chance to be a walk-on.
By the middle of his junior year in Evanston, Wieber was a starter and had a scholarship. He would become a two-time member of the Big Ten’s All-Academic team.
The people who know him aren’t surprised at his single-mindedness on the R.A.W. Initiative.
“He’s a very, very hard worker,” Thompson said. “I was impressed with Sean from the moment I heard about his going from walk-on to starting free safety. I mean, this kid is `Rudy.’ It just shows you his drive and determination. When he fastens on a goal, he doesn’t let anything get in his way.”
To say events have moved quickly with the initiative would be an understatement. Wieber received his school assignment on Jan. 22. He gave his class presentation on Jan. 29. With encouragement from Thompson, Wieber talked with Burke.
The deadline for bill filings was Feb. 1. Burke filed a shell bill, which described the generalities of the proposal but allowed him to file Wieber’s amendments to the bill later. One of the amendments requires coaches to be certified in the use of the portable defibrillators.
On Thursday, House Bill 1279 was assigned to the Executive Committee, chaired by Burke. If it passes there, it goes to the House floor for debate. Then it will be introduced in the Senate.
“Extraordinary,” Thompson said. “This is amazing.”
Burke, who doesn’t envision much resistance to the bill, had hoped to add outdoor facilities to his original statute but hadn’t planned on doing it so soon. When Wieber told him about his law-school assignment, told him about Wheeler, he had one thought:
Of course.
`A very, very bad dream’
Many of the players piled into a small waiting room at Evanston Hospital after Wheeler was brought to the facility.
Wieber stood next to new defensive backs coach Pat Fitzgerald, now Northwestern’s head coach.
“It was like a very, very bad dream, but you’re living it,” Wieber said. “I don’t think there was a word said between anyone. Eventually, one of the ER doctors came in and said Rashidi was gone. Pat grabbed me and I grabbed him and we’re both crying. Some people looked like they had no emotion at all, literally staring into space.
“I remember Ike Ndukwe, a big offensive tackle, broke the chair he was sitting in out of frustration. Literally picked it up and threw it.”
Wieber went home and wrote down a timeline of what had happened that day. He knew there would be a lawsuit, and he wanted to make sure he would remember that day exactly the way he had lived it. The next day he looked over his notes again to view the events from an emotional distance.
When attorneys for Wheeler’s mother, Linda Will, deposed him, he turned down Northwestern’s offer of legal representation and hired his own counsel.
“I wanted to be nonpartisan,” he said. “I wanted to be loyal to Rashidi, loyal to my university but loyal to the truth. So it was really a tough situation just as a witness to something.”
The case never went to trial. In August 2005, a judge ordered Will and other relatives to accept a $16 million settlement from the school. She wanted a public apology and Walker’s firing from Northwestern.
Finally, a ray of light
Few shafts of light have cut through the darkness of Aug. 3, 2001. Many of the key players from the tragedy are gone. Athletic director Rick Taylor retired. The head trainer, Tory Aggeler, left. Will’s attorney, Johnnie Cochran, died of cancer in 2005. Walker died of a heart attack last year.
There has been so much anger since that day, so much poison, so much sadness and pain. Not much in the way of good has resulted from Wheeler’s death. But now come Wieber and House Bill 1279.
Big-name athletes sometimes die suddenly. Minnesota Vikings offensive lineman Korey Stringer died of heat exhaustion two days before Wheeler died. And athletes you’ve never heard of have collapsed on soccer fields and baseball diamonds.
Wieber was a volunteer for a youth football program in Evanston last year.
He found himself thinking that if something happened to one of the players, all he had in the way of help was a cell phone and prayer.
One AED costs $800. It’s worth it.
Wieber is 27. Provided he graduates in May, he’ll begin as a litigation associate at Winston & Strawn in September. He’s about 40 pounds lighter than his playing weight of 215 pounds. He’s a bigger man now.
He said he thinks about Rashidi Wheeler every day.
“I’ll have dreams where we’re playing Michigan again, and I look over and he’s there,” Wieber said. “It just happens. You’re replaying the events of your life.”
It made him wake up.
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rmorrissey@tribune.com
