Prep football star dies after running from party that got busted

Terrible story from Minnesota.

A star high school running back was at a party at a farm that got busted by the police. He ran from the place. Was found a half-day later and died. I've heard he died of exposure but a cause hasn't been released.

strib.mn/1g1a00c

Anyone who grew up in a small town has been to these types of parties and probably been to ones that got busted and probably had to run through a field or something. Hard to even picture how a death comes out of it.

 

Oh, I could picture it. Drunk, falls a couple times and gets the clothes wet, sits down just to rest, closes his eyes for just a second, and suddenly he's asleep for hours in the subfreezing (possibly subzero) temperatures.

I can think of a couple of such nights of my own that if I hadn't been walking with someone ... there but for the grace of God, that's what I'm saying.

 

Yeah, that's true, good point. And everyone kind of runs off by themselves, save yourself from getting a minor, so his friends wouldn't necessarily be with him.

 

Yep. And, most probably, he wouldn't have stopped to grab a jacket.

 

I had a friend in high school who smoked pot for the first time, it was laced with something... He freaked out and ran out of the party. We chased after him and found him about 30 minutes later passed out in the middle of what is normally a pretty busy road. He probably had been there less than a minute, but seeing that really freaked us all out. We carried him to the side of the road and then a huge truck sped down the road right where he was.

 

I can't wait until my kids are teen-agers!

 

Yeah, no shit...

I'm stunned at the stuff I got away with as a teenager, but I think I was given a lot of slack because I did well in school and sports and rarely drank and never touched drugs. My mom was so worried about my sister that the focus was definitely not on me.

 

It was easier to be a teenager then. There was very little you could do that was going to affect your post-high-school life. The DUI penalties were much less severe, and colleges rarely knew and even more rarely cared about your disciplinary background. Plus it wasn't as difficult to get into the better colleges. Nowadays everything that happens from ninth grade up can count against you.

 

Yeah, I think with technology where it is today, I think college would be easier, but high school would be harder, or at least more complex.

 

I've told a lot of people this. My state bar association, two years ago, emailed me and asked for my middle school's address, phone number, and "contact person."

I was 35.

 

The kid was 18. In the old days he was legal.

 

Or this was a fantastic practical joke.