Danger can lurk in competition

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By DARRELL FRY

© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 24, 2001

At the moment, we don't have all the answers to all the questions. There are more tests to be taken, more results to be analyzed, more data that needs to be gathered.

What we know for certain is one college football player lost his life and another is clinging to his in a Gainesville hospital, tethered to his world by tubes and monitors. We know they both collapsed after strenuous workouts that apparently weren't terribly more grueling than workouts taking place at any other school.

What we don't know is why. What caused these two seemingly healthy young men -- Florida State's Devaughn Darling and Florida's Eraste Autin -- to collapse while training for a sport they had played much of their lives?

Autin was headed with teammates toward the locker room after a voluntary off-season workout Thursday when he dropped to the ground because of heat stroke. A report in USA Today said the heat stroke led to a massive heart attack and early tests showed no brain activity.

Darling died in February after completing arduous indoor agility drills as part of FSU's voluntary off-season workouts. An autopsy found no definitive cause.

It is only natural to wonder how much strain these workouts caused. Were Darling and Autin pushed too hard? Were plenty of fluids available?

It's also natural to wonder about their health at the time. Did either have a pre-existing condition? If so, might it have been a contributing factor? (In Darling's case, a rare sickle cell trait may have played a role, according to the autopsy.) Then again, maybe none of that had anything to do with it.

I mean, in case you hadn't noticed, football is a tough sport, even on tough guys. It's serious business, especially at powerhouses like FSU and UF. Competitiveness is everyone's roommate. Making the team as a freshman is huge. Being a starter is like having Britney Spears as a prom date.

That can cloud your judgment, especially if you're only 18. Make you push yourself more than you should. Make you think you can withstand more than you can.

Ask a couple of football players about it. I did. This is what they told me.

That the competitive atmosphere of big-time football would surprise you. That players will stop at nothing to impress the coaches or gain an edge on others competing for their position. That they would be hesitant to take a break or ask for water if they needed it, fearful they would be deemed out of shape or not dedicated.

The last person they want to be seen with during practice is the trainer or team doctor. Somehow, it's going to get back to their position coach. Or worse, to the head coach. That could, they fear, lead to speculation about their conditioning, about how serious they've been working out on their own.

It's something constantly on their minds because they think it could be the difference between starting or riding the bench, between making the squad or making the traveling squad.

But what about between life and death?

We don't know if Darling or Autin were overdoing it when they collapsed. But we do know they were both 18-year-old freshmen trying to make an impact, that Autin has been described more than once as "a real hard worker" and that Darling had complained of chest pains but didn't report it to team trainers.

And we know that doctors in Darling's case mentioned water intake as a key factor, and that some FSU players admitted not having time for more than a gulp or two between drills.

Hopefully, neither Darling nor Autin felt pressured enough to test his physical limits. Hopefully, these are isolated incidents that won't reoccur for a long, long time, if ever.

The troubling part is, we just don't know.

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