Walker, Taylor Could Be Named in Will’s Lawsuit

The attorneys representing Linda Will, Rashidi Wheeler’s mother, will conduct a conference call today to determine whether they should name Northwestern football Coach Randy Walker and Athletic Director Rick Taylor in a lawsuit to be filed Friday.

Jim Montgomery, the Chicago-based partner of Los Angeles attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr., said Tuesday that the suit claiming negligence would name Northwestern University and members of the training staff who attended the Aug. 3 conditioning drill. Wheeler, a 22-year-old starting strong safety at Northwestern, collapsed during the workout and died minutes later of what a Cook County medical examiner ruled to be exercise-induced bronchial asthma.

“Initially, our focus was centered on who made the wrong decisions on the field,” Randall Schwartz, the attorney assigned by Montgomery to handle the case’s day-to-day workload, said Wednesday. “As we considered it, the thought was that at some point Coach Walker has a duty as head coach and should know about what’s going on at his practices. He is the captain of the ship.”

Similarly, Schwartz said, Taylor could be named because he is Walker’s boss.

Schwartz said the final decision regarding Walker and Taylor will be determined by Cochran and Montgomery.

The claim to be filed Friday will not include a specific dollar amount, except to note Will is seeking in excess of the court’s jurisdictional limit of $50,000.

“Linda has not talked in dollars,” Schwartz said. “She has said she wants to make a difference in other athletes’ lives. Sometimes the way you make changes and improvements is with lawsuits.”

Schwartz repeated the three major points of Will’s negligence claim: improper staffing, inability to establish immediate telephone contact with emergency personnel and a misdiagnosis that Wheeler, a chronic asthmatic, was hyperventilating.