In Mankato, Stringer Definitely Was a Special K

The rain fell. The news hit. The tears flowed.

This small college town that is the summer home to the Minnesota Vikings endured death Wednesday.

“He was 27 years old,” Bill Breitbarth said. “You’re just starting your life then.”

Breitbarth, 64, a stocky, ruddy-faced retired businessmen, gingerly cradled a beer in the aging brick building called the Circle Inn. He was one of 10 people sitting at the bar watching ESPN report on Korey Stringer, the Pro Bowl right tackle for the Vikings who died of heatstroke. Shock and confusion ate at everyone.

“The things that happened Monday [at practice], him throwing up, should’ve been checked,” Breitbarth said.

“My daughter called me at 6 [Wednesday morning]. She said, ‘Dad, did you hear what happened?’ She came over and we watched the news conference [with Viking Coach Dennis Green and receivers Cris Carter and Randy Moss]. It was very emotional.”

Breitbarth wiped his right eye.

“The things he’d done for his team and for charity,” Breitbarth said. “He never argued with anyone. He never fought with anyone. He got along with everybody,”

Breitbarth wiped his left eye.

“Lots of guys get together on a team and some don’t fit in,” Breitbarth continued. “But he fit in. It’s going to hurt.”

Breitbarth put a hand to each of his puddling blue eyes. Indeed, the shocking death of this pro athlete hurt throughout the town where the Vikings have held training camp for the last 36 years.

Mankato is 90 miles south of “The Cities,” as Minnesotans refer to Minneapolis and St. Paul. But Wednesday it was a universe away from normalcy.

“It’s disrupted the entire state,” said Bob Loken, 46, a sales rep in Mankato.

Minnesota State University at Mankato, with a student body of about 12,000, is cut amid stately white poplars. It is surrounded by a population of 40,000. But it is all Vikings here, right down to the purple and gold crosswalk next to the practice fields.

Jody Kans and her 12-year-old son Jesse passed that crosswalk Wednesday afternoon carrying some purple and yellow flowers with a note that read, “We love you Korie. We will miss you.”

They would place them along a fence near the practice field that had become a memorial to Stringer.

“I’m a big Vikings fan,” Kanz said. “My son said, ‘What are we going to do today, Mom?’ I said we’re going to take a drive down to Mankato and put some flowers down.”

The growing memorial included flowers, purple football-shaped balloons and notes.

“Corey, you will always be in our hearts,” read one. “Your family will always be in our prayers. You will never be forgotten. You will always be a Viking.”

“God bless you,” read another.

“RIP #77,” read yet another.

People came and went. They couldn’t stay long at the memorial. The heat, you know.

“Korey related so well with kids and the community,” said Diane Fix, an administrative assistant at the school. “He helped out schools. We heard nice stories today, like last year he saw someone he knew and asked how it was going. The guy said his football program [in Stringer’s hometown of Warren, Ohio] needed some things. He gave them his Pro Bowl check. Signed it over to them.”

Alane and Elmore Roundtree walked by with Alane’s brother Scott Loomer and the group’s four children. They all wore purple ribbons that sported a purple “#77.” They made the ribbons Wednesday morning, just before they drove from a Twin Cities suburb to this southern Minnesota town.

“It was a tough ride down,” Alane said. “He was a class act with all the kids. He spent so much time signing autographs.”

Stringer’s outgoing nature and fondness for kids came through in a day of public eulogizing. Scott Benge, 40, a pilot who flies out of Chicago for United Airlines, stood by a practice field fence with his boys, Matt, 10, and Luke, 7, talking about the time they were on the same flight as the man the Vikings called “Big K.”

“‘They went up to him and said, ‘Hi, Mr. Stringer,’ and shook his hand,” Benge said. “He asked them how they were doing.

“This is awful. Why does it happen to good people?”

One block from the memorial is a tent run by the Sports ‘N’ You collectible store. There was a run on all things Stringer.

“One lady was crying and bought a pompon and started the memorial,” proprietor Mike Buckingham said.

Viking players were said to be walking in slow motion inside the team’s Gage Hall campus headquarters. The few players who ventured out on their bikes or scooters just nodded. Nobody was talking. Nobody knew what to say.

“[Tuesday] night we all thought he’d be fine,” said Jon Mueller, owner of a campus hangout also popular with the Vikings.

The sadness that ran through the community was interspersed with frustration about how hard the players are pushed when the heat index soars above 100.

“We talked about it at the job site,” said Jeff Schwamber, a fireplace installer who walked from the field with his wife and three children on a day nearly as smothering as the one that felled Stringer. “We were asking how they could make these guys practice in this heat.

“Every time we heard an ambulance or a siren go by at the job site, we’d say they’re going to practice, as a joke.

“It’s not too funny anymore.”