Athlete’s Death Rocks Football-Crazed Louisiana Town

To understand what happened to Butch Theriot, you have to understand that, until Aug. 11, losing another high school football game seemed like just about the worst thing imaginable around here, short of another hurricane.

That was before Theriot collapsed and died after the first practice for this year’s season--and coaches and teammates, friends and family, began wondering why.

In this Cajun town, two things are certain this time of year--most folks will be at a football field on Friday night and at Mass on Sunday morning. “I’d say about 90% of us are Catholics,” said Marcel Hebert, who owns the trophy store in town. “About that many of us are football fans too.”

It’s the same every year, when Louisiana heat steams the land and players assemble on the field beside Breaux Bridge High School.

Last year was a 1-9 mess. There were injuries, and the team was young, inexperienced. “It was awful,” said defensive lineman P.J. Williams. “Everyone was on us.” This year, the players vowed, things would be different.

Among those determined to win was Norris Theriot III, known as Butch, an 18-year-old offensive lineman. “Butch and the other seniors on the team made a pact that they would push each other,” his father, Norris Theriot Jr., said. “He was set on going to the playoffs. He was determined they wouldn’t have a losing season his senior year.”

Butch, whose love of football never extended to workouts, dedicated himself to getting in shape. He began jogging. He turned down travel to Europe with his cousin’s Cajun band so that he could continue his conditioning. He felt strong, ready to go.

“Butch really wanted to play this year,” his sister, Kathy Knight, said. “Usually he was always complaining when practice started--’my leg, my toe,’ this and that. This year he wanted it. He wasn’t doing it for Daddy. He wasn’t doing it for the coach. He wasn’t doing it for anyone but himself.”

The Theriots are football nuts. Like his son, Theriot played for Breaux Bridge. When Peggy Theriot was hospitalized, the rest of the family visited only briefly before heading to the football game. “I wasn’t upset because they left,” she said. “I was upset because I couldn’t go with them.”

With Butch, their only son, playing, the excitement grew.

On Aug. 11, the team worked in pads for the first time. It was hot. But the players, who had begun in peewee leagues as grade school students, always practiced in the heat. That day, the Tigers practiced from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., taking frequent breaks to drink water.

During a half-hour break, Butch rested under a pecan tree. “Being a senior, he was so set on being a leader he didn’t say anything when he started feeling bad,” shop owner Hebert said. “I think he thought he’d just suck it up and go on.”

So Butch went through the drills, hitting and sprinting in 93-degree heat.

At 1:30, he collapsed. Coaches carried him to the training room, put him in a whirlpool bath and added ice to lower his temperature.

Theriot, at practice three times that day, rushed to his son. “I talked to him and he took a few breaths,” he said. “Then the ambulance got there, and we got him out of the bath so they could start working on him.”

Emergency workers began CPR and started an IV but could not get a heartbeat. At 2:20 p.m., Butch was pronounced dead from heatstroke.

“Although he was in good shape for him, he was somewhat overweight,” said Dr. Kim Edward LeBlanc, coroner for St. Martin Parish. “That makes you more prone to heatstroke. Then add plastic in the pads, and it’s like you’re in a sauna. There’s no evaporative cooling.”

Athletes, especially heavy ones, can sweat 1 to 2 liters an hour, he said. “That makes it hard to replace the liquid just by drinking.”

Counselors came in to work with teammates and other students. But only one young man was pulled off the team.

“It’s going to take everyone a long time to get over it,” said Linda Theriot, whose son Kyle is a tight end on the team. “Every parent worries about something happening to one of these boys. But football is a big part of life here.”

Butch was buried in his football jersey, with teammates serving as pallbearers. Then the Tigers added Butch’s number to their helmets and dedicated the season to him. In the opener against North Iberville, they got off to a bang-up start with a 47-12 victory.

“He had such hopes for this season and wanted so much to be a leader for them,” Peggy Theriot said. “The last thing Butch would have wanted to do was to die that day. But I know he died happy doing something he loved.”

Norris Theriot and his family are adjusting. He still heads the quarterback club. The week after his son died, he helped erect a new scoreboard. And each week, he watches the game film with the team. “It helps me get through it,” he said.

But Theriot also carries a clipping in his wallet--an anonymous paragraph from a flier’s talk-of-the-town column. It says that only fools make young men play football in Louisiana’s steamy heat. It claims that foolish pride killed Butch Theriot and will kill others.

“That hurt me a lot,” Theriot said. “I’ll always have that little kernel of guilt or hurt deep inside. I’ll always wake up wondering if it could have been different.”