Family, Friends Mourn Death of Dorsey Athlete : Tragedy: Hundreds attend service for honor student who died of a self-inflicted gunshot.

Wilfred L. Wright III was dressed in his Dorsey High School baseball uniform Saturday as his fellow students filed past his casket, some crying, others reaching out to touch a gifted young athlete who had an irreverent sense of humor.

That sense of humor--and the senseless loss of Wright’s life--were themes repeated time and again as 700 students, teachers and family members paid their respects to the 17-year-old baseball player who killed himself Tuesday while playing Russian roulette on a team bus.

With Wright’s mother wearing his team jacket and many of his schoolmates wearing their school colors, those who knew Wright best described the prankster in him.

Ava Shah, the football team’s “official mom” and president of the Dorsey booster club, recalled the time Wright walked up to her from behind, kissed her on the back of the neck and asked her for a date to the prom. “Nobody else would do that but him,” she said.

Few students would dare call Athletic Director Cecil Peoples by his first name. But that was enough of a challenge for Wright, a speedy athlete who “stuck his head in the door and yelled out, ‘Say, Cecil!’

“I knew I couldn’t catch him,” Peoples said during memorial services at First African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Many mourners said they had trouble understanding the death of a young man who had so much to live for. He was an honor student, a star in track, football and baseball. He had devoted parents and a scholarship to the University of La Verne.

“I was deeply hurt by his death,” said Keyshawn Johnson, 18, a graduate of Dorsey. “He made a big mistake.”

If there is a lesson in this, Johnson said, “it’s to take life a little more seriously.”

Peoples urged the students never to assume that someone with a good sense of humor is without problems.

He also said there is something to be learned from the seemingly senseless death of Wright, who schoolmates said was carrying the gun because he had been threatened by gang members.

“Open up channels of communication with parents,” he said. “Break the code of silence and communicate. Life is important, education is important. . . . We will assist you along the rocky road.”

The shooting occurred as the team bus was returning to Dorsey after the baseball squad had lost a game at Gardena High School.

Wright’s mother, Grace, the team’s “official mom,” and his father, Wilfred Sr., who was the team photographer, were traveling behind the bus at the time of the shooting. The gun Wright used to shoot himself belonged to his mother.

At the funeral, school officials presented Grace Wright with her son’s trophy for participating on the football team.

In the eulogy, Rev. Kenneth C. Ulmer told the parents that they should not blame themselves for the tragedy.

“Great athletes always are supported by teammates,” he said. “A running back always needs good blockers. You were his teammates. You were his blockers, you ran interference for him.

“When you weep, don’t weep wondering what you did wrong. You did more in 17 years than most parents do in a lifetime.”

State Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles), a Dorsey graduate, urged the students and parents to take Wright’s death as a message.

“Something is happening to our young people,” she said. “Too many of our young are being led astray. Make his life stand for something. It should teach us a lesson, send us a message that we are losing too many of our young people to senseless violence.”