A Life Cut Short Remembered

A pile of plywood, the remnants of a child’s dream, is stacked in the rusted hull of a pickup truck behind Patrick Bennett’s double-wide trailer. That’s what remains of his son’s half-built skateboard ramp, a structure ripped apart by bottomless grief and a few swings of a claw-hammer.

“My dad tore it down two days after Derez died,” Bennett said of the boy’s grandfather. “He said he didn’t want to see it no more.”

Jamarious Derez Bennett, a 13-year-old football player, died last Wednesday, minutes after collapsing on the field at the start of practice. At 4 feet 9, 100 pounds, he was the youngest and the ninth football fatality this year--two more players have died since--a tragic continuum that stretches from middle-school level to the NFL. About 500 mourners attended the teenager’s funeral Sunday, fanning themselves in the muggy heat of the Jasper County High gymnasium. Beside the makeshift pulpit was his open casket. He wore a long-sleeved T-shirt with a motorcycle logo and was buried with a motocross magazine and three unopened toy mini-bikes. Beneath the casket were two new footballs. A third, signed by the receiver-defensive back’s Jasper County Middle School teammates, was presented to his parents.

It could be a month before there are definitive answers about what killed Derez. He had no history of health problems and, although he died on a sweltering afternoon, he lost consciousness before he really had a chance to break a sweat.

His death has rocked the rural communities of Monticello and Shady Dale, which are an hour east of Atlanta and separated by an eight-mile section of the Trisha Yearwood Parkway, named for the country singer who was born and raised in Monticello.

“It’s a very difficult time,” said Jay Brinson, in his first year as superintendent of Jasper schools. “People expect us to be all-seeing and all-knowing, to be able to predict these things. We simply can’t.”

Bennett’s parents believe school officials and medical personnel did everything they could to save the teenager’s life.

“I look at it like this was his time,” his mother, Lawandra, said softly. “I don’t care if there were 1,000 doctors there. If the Lord called him, He called him.”

According to Brinson, who asked the coaches and trainer to direct all questions to him, there were no signs at the start of practice that Derez was having problems. He participated in team stretching, then joined his fellow receivers for position drills.

Because there is only one field for both the high school and middle school, the teams staged simultaneous practices at opposite ends of the field. In all, there were 10 coaches on the field and one trainer working both ends. Monticello is about 35 miles north of Macon, which had a high temperature of 88 on Wednesday and a heat index of about 97, according to the National Weather Service. The heat index is a composite of temperature and relative humidity.

This is how Brinson said the tragedy unfolded:

Midway through the first position drill, Bennett told his coach he felt ill. The coach told him to go to the sideline, take off his helmet, sit down and drink water.

After they finished the drill, Bennett’s teammates joined him for a water break. Again, Bennett told his coach he wasn’t feeling well. Some people say the boy also complained of having blurred vision, although his coach does not recall that.

The coach told him to take off his jersey and pads and cool the back of his neck with water. At the time, the trainer was taking the player’s pulse and asking him questions.

“Derez was completely coherent,” Brinson said. “He answered all the questions the trainer had for him: ‘What did you have for lunch? Who are your teachers?’ And, while the trainer still had his hand on his pulse, Derez lost consciousness.”

As a student assistant used a cellular phone to call for an ambulance, the trainer began CPR. By the time he finished two rounds of CPR, the ambulance had arrived from Jasper Memorial Hospital, a quarter-mile down the street.

The practice field is in a bowl, however, and the only access is by foot. So the trainer scooped Derez in his arms and briskly carried him across the field. As players watched in horror, one of the coaches sprinted over, lifted the boy out of the trainer’s arms and ran him up the hill to the ambulance.

He was rushed to the emergency room, where doctors tried to revive him with a defibrillator and cardiac drugs. His parents, both of whom had worked graveyard shifts the night before and were sleeping, were contacted and arrived at the hospital within minutes.

“When I first got to the hospital, I thought he would be sitting up, like he was just dehydrated or something,” his father said. “I opened the door of the emergency room and a doctor was on top of him doing CPR. The nurse told me to go back outside. My wife was out there and I told her they were doing CPR. We both started crying.”

The boy’s body was sent to Atlanta for an autopsy by Jasper County Coroner Billy Norris, who said results will not be available for at least a month.

“The doctors told me it looked like he had a massive heart attack,” Patrick Bennett said, wiping his eyes. “But they haven’t ruled out heatstroke.”

He said his son was not taking any medication and did not use dietary supplements. He was, after all, a child. He had a mini-bike and two go-carts he used to drive up and down the red clay road leading to his family’s trailer. His maternal grandparents and uncle live in the next-door trailer, the closest neighbor several acres away.

“I already miss him being around here,” said his grandfather, Willie Jones, his voice almost inaudible over the hum of a fan. “He’d come down to see me every day .... It’s real painful. I get full, like I want to cry whenever I talk about it.”

There is more activity in the Bennetts’ trailer, which is tidy and air-conditioned. The phone rings every few minutes, and there is a constant flow of visitors bringing food. On the counter, the casseroles are stacking up.

“All this food, and we aren’t even hungry,” said Corvetta Cobb, 12, the older of Derez’s two sisters.

The day before the funeral, Patrick Bennett sat in his living room talking to a reporter. There was a knock at the door. His son’s four coaches had come to express their sympathies. They brought soft drinks and a chocolate cake, stepping through the doorway with eyes lowered.

Introduced to the reporter, three of them buried their hands in their pockets. The forth raised his as if leaning on a wall and said, unsolicited, “Hey, we’re not going to say anything.”

“It’s OK,” Bennett assured them. “Like I tell everybody, you guys did everything you could do. Some things you just can’t explain.”

The coaches excused themselves and took a look around the boy’s bedroom, which his parents have not disturbed, except to hang from a wall his purple and white jersey, silver helmet and cleats. Above is an enlarged school picture, with “Jamarious Derez Bennett” autographed in childlike block letters.

Their visit complete, the coaches quietly said goodbye and stepped out into a muggy afternoon.

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