Death of a young athlete

And I'm sure that meant a lot to your friend's loved ones. Often times reading something like that gives them closure. It gives the mourning period a sense of finality.

 

Difficult as they are to do, I approach stories like this as a "duty" to the family, almost. You want to preserve and be faithful to the young man's memory, because in a year, two years, five years, those memories -- and that story -- will be all they have. Well, not all, but it will be something they'll treasure. Maybe they stick it in a scrapbook, or a family Bible or something, and some family member who's not even born yet will be able to put an identity to someone who was only a name to them.
It's an awesome responsibility.

 

Number of excellent points here, from Jambalaya, who is right on the fact that people sometimes really do want to talk to huntsie on the importance of doing it right.

I used to be the "Dead Guy" columnist at our paper, both young athletes and adults. I have moved on, and the guy doing it now is better than I ever was.

The toughest? Extremely popular wrestling coach's mom died. I knew the family well, and I had known here. Wrote the column, went to the wake, and the column was sitting in the casket. Yeah, lost it right there.

I think this stories are so important, because in the end, sports is about people.

 

As cautionary tail don't follow the lead of Mike Lupica when doing death stories. He wrote a story about the funeral of Joe Coppo who died in the Towers on 9/11.

He described the funeral mass - a Catholic ceremony. Highlight was writing about Joe's friends bringing "wine and cheese " to the alter. The most sacred part of the Catholic mass when bread and wine is transformed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

 

He seriously thought the consecration was a wine and cheese offering? WOW

 

When I was in the classroom, a former student had his heart explode doing pull ups. He was about 12 at the time. I had left that school for administration when it happened. The funeral was open casket, though. I am not forgetting that one anytime soon.

They have busted out the defib at that school twice and are batting .500. They saved a teacher with it about a year later.

Man, I have been at some crazy funerals in the last five years. Three were kids. A still born infant of a co-worker, this former student and a poker buddy whose wife ran over their two-year-old with the SUV in the driveway.

Small caskets just suck.

Can you imagine that people that make them? God, what a morbid job.

 

I hear you, 93. I hate death stories in general ... but stories about kids always suck that much more. You move to sports to get away from them ... but they find you.