Drive to Excel Brings Death to the Gridiron

Rashidi Wheeler knew he had to get through The Drill. Failure was not an option.

He finished the first phase, the 10 consecutive, 100-yard sprints. No problem. He managed the next part--eight back-to-back 80-yard runs. But by the last of the six 60-yard dashes, he was laboring. Still ahead were four 40-yard sprints, with only a few seconds rest in between. Steps into the first one, he wobbled, then fell to his hands and knees.

His Northwestern University teammates were not alarmed. Neither were the trainers. Wheeler was a chronic asthmatic. They had seen him collapse and struggle for breath many times before.

As he lay on his side, panting, someone offered him a drink. Teammates sprayed Wheeler with water. A player stood over him to provide shade. A friend fetched his inhaler from a nearby bench.

Wheeler took a puff, trying to hold the medicine in his lungs.

“I’m tired of breathing,” he said.

It was only when he spoke again that the clutch of players around him sensed that this attack was not like the others.

“I’m dying,” he told them. “I’m dying.”

Teammate Sean Wieber cradled Wheeler and began to cry.

Within minutes, an ambulance arrived. Paramedics hooked up monitors and began an IV.

“He’s flat-lining!” one of them cried.

Wheeler’s death on Aug. 3 has placed a spotlight on the training rituals of big-time college football. Today’s athletes endure punishing regimens year-round in hopes of gaining an edge in the competition for a starting spot and possibly a shot at a professional career.

Increasingly, they are turning to dietary supplements for an extra burst of energy on the field. Some contain potentially dangerous stimulants such as ephedrine, which is banned by the NCAA and the International Olympic Committee.

Both trends converged in the case of Wheeler, whose death is one of 11 football-related fatalities across the country this year. The 22-year-old defensive back from Ontario, Calif., collapsed at a preseason workout while performing a notoriously difficult endurance test devised by Northwestern Coach Randy Walker, an apostle of tough conditioning.

The pressure on college players to excel is intense, especially for someone like Wheeler, who dreamed of playing in the National Football League and who, his coaches said, had the potential to make it.

All summer, Wheeler and his teammates trained six days a week, sometimes seven. Yet Wheeler and several other Northwestern players felt they needed another advantage. Before running the drill on Aug. 3, they took ephedrine-laced supplements with names like Ultimate Orange, Ultimate Punch and Xenadrine.

A coroner’s report listed bronchial asthma as the cause of Wheeler’s death but confirmed the presence of ephedrine in his system. “We do not think [ephedrine] contributed to his death,” Dr. Edmund Donoghue, the Cook County medical examiner, said.

Some medical experts, however, have suggested the ephedrine detected in Wheeler’s blood could have been a contributing factor.

Wheeler was not the only player in distress that day. Ten collapsed on the practice field. Several acknowledge having taken supplements containing ephedrine.

Wheeler’s family has filed a lawsuit against Northwestern, contending that it was inadequately prepared for an emergency. The university has launched an investigation into Wheeler’s death. Pending the outcome, officials have suspended Walker’s legendary drill.

The accounts of teammates, coaches and others, police reports and emergency records, and a videotape of the practice give a detailed picture of what happened that day. The Times also had exclusive access to a lengthy eyewitness account written by a Northwestern player just hours after the chaotic scene that unfolded. Combined, they provide a window onto the rigors of football conditioning and the culture that sustains it.

After Wheeler collapsed, the drill kept going.

As he lay struggling to breathe, the drill kept going.

When several teammates toppled over from exhaustion, the drill kept going.

As emergency workers tried to revive the dying Wheeler, the drill kept going.

Thoughts of Stringer

In the midst of a heat wave enveloping the Midwest on Aug. 1, Korey Stringer, an offensive lineman for the Minnesota Vikings, suffered heatstroke during the team’s preseason training and died. He was the first NFL player to die of that cause.

Stringer’s death was on the minds of many Northwestern players when they gathered two days later. Under NCAA rules, such summer workouts must be voluntary and the head coach cannot be present. But few players dared miss the session.

Ryan Field, the university’s football stadium, was still soggy from a torrential rainstorm, so the 4 p.m. drill was moved to a field nearby.

On a clear day, the view south is spectacular. On this day, however, there were no glimpses of downtown Chicago. The John Hancock Building and the Sears Tower, a dozen miles away, were shrouded in haze.

Temperatures reached the 80s, with little or no breeze. Most players went shirtless.

Though Walker was not there, his presence was felt by Wheeler and his teammates.

A standout high school running back in Ohio, Walker became a star at Miami University of Ohio, then a winning college coach. In nine years as head coach at Miami, he had only one losing season.

He took over the Northwestern football program in 1999 and quickly turned the perennial doormat into a winner.

Walker sought to instill a value system, on the field and off. Among his rules: Players must be clean-shaven. No jewelry. No backward baseball caps. No underage drinking.

“I’ll be the first to say: In this 21st century, I’m probably a little bit of a throwback,” Walker, 47, said in an interview days after Wheeler’s death.

Walker is an admitted fanatic about conditioning. He believes it reduces the risk of injury and increases a team’s will to win, especially in the clutch moments of a game.

Few could argue with the results. Despite highlights such as the 1996 Rose Bowl game, Northwestern’s football program had struggled against decades of futility, including a 34-game losing streak from 1979 to 1982. But the Wildcats gained respectability under Walker.

They were 3-8 his first season. Last year, the team went 8-3 during the regular season, finishing in a three-way tie atop the Big Ten.

The centerpiece of Walker’s regimen is the drill, a rigorous endurance test required of all Northwestern players. Team members must run a series of sprints in set times, with only brief respites in between.

It works like this:

Run 100 yards in no more than 15 seconds. Rest for 15 seconds. Repeat 10 times.

Run 80 yards in 13 seconds. Rest for 13 seconds. Repeat eight times.

Run 60 yards in 10 seconds. Rest for 12 seconds. Repeat six times.

Finally, run 40 yards in seven seconds. Rest for 11 seconds. Repeat four times.

In all, the 28 sprints take about 12 minutes and cover about 1 1/4 miles.

Walker said he likes the drill because it’s like football--quick bursts of activity followed by a brief recovery. He has used it for 25 years.

When Northwestern players first heard about it, many were incredulous.

“We thought it was impossible,” said Dwayne Missouri, a defensive lineman who graduated last year and is in the Baltimore Ravens’ training camp this year. “No one had pushed us to that point before.”

Over the years, some have questioned Walker’s approach to discipline and training. At Northwestern’s preseason camp in Kenosha, Wis., two years ago, injured players had to affix red crosses to their purple helmets.

The idea was to motivate through embarrassment.

Walker has since stopped that practice, but he makes no apologies for his demanding approach: He said last year: “A lot of what I preach is foreign. I know that. I know I’m not for every kid. I know I’ve been attacked in recruiting for my approach--’He’s nuts. . . . Randy Walker is the Bob Knight of Big Ten football coaches.’ I don’t know that I am. But I don’t really care.”

Wheeler and other players spent the summer in Evanston, preparing for Walker’s 28-sprint drill.

In late July, they did a dry run.

Wheeler could not complete the sprints in the required time. Neither could several of his teammates.

The first real test, supervised by a coach with a stopwatch, would come Aug. 3. Players badly wanted to pass that day. Those who failed would have to run the drill again Aug. 17, when Northwestern formally opened camp in muggy Kenosha.

“Guys who had been struggling to pass the practice test were especially concerned, wondering if they had what it took to pass,” according to the player who wrote the lengthy account obtained by The Times.

Seeking an Edge

Some players prepared by loosening up in the whirlpool or stretching with team trainers.

Others sought an edge elsewhere, mixing Ultimate Punch and Ultimate Orange in their water bottles. Wheeler mixed Ultimate Punch with another supplement, Xenadrine, according to a police report based on an interview with the team trainer.

One player struggled to explain why he turned to Ultimate Orange that day.

“I mean, you do different things for different reasons,” he said. “You’re worried about these things. You just sort of--sometimes you don’t think and you don’t do the right things at the right time. I didn’t, you know, I don’t think I did the right thing, you know. That’s on me.”

Another player described the locker room in the minutes before the drill: “A lot of them were saying it was an energy drink like Gatorade, something with electrolytes, which would help us that day. . . . [Players] were just going around putting it in our drinks.”

Manufacturers typically promote the supplements as a way to boost energy and enhance athletic performance. Combined with warm weather and strenuous exercise, however, ephedrine can put a dangerous strain on the heart, health experts say.

Wheeler was solidly built--6 feet tall, 210 pounds--and fast. He was aggressive enough and quick enough to have been assigned to the Wildcats’ kickoff coverage team.

Players, coaches and others said Wheeler had talent, strength and speed--enough to play professional football someday.

They also said he had trouble getting through Walker’s conditioning drills, perhaps because of his asthma.

Sometimes his focus wandered. To Wheeler, there was more to life than football.

There was fun.

He was known to party and stay out late, and some teammates thought it detracted from his on-field performance.

“If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would you want it to be?” Wheeler was asked in the 1999 Northwestern media guide. “I wouldn’t want to come back,” he responded. “Just chill in heaven.”

‘Enjoy Life’ as Motto

Asked his motto, Wheeler answered “Enjoy life!” Asked to describe Walker, he said: “Doesn’t B.S.!”

Wheeler’s middle name, Ayodele, means “joy come home,” said Kevin Lawrence, who lived with Wheeler in an off-campus apartment.

On a recent birthday, Lawrence opened the door to his room to find Wheeler in the hallway, naked, holding a silver platter bearing a roll of toilet paper and Hawaiian Punch.

“He’s like, ‘Oh, happy birthday.’ I just started laughing and slammed the door,” Lawrence said. “That was Rashidi.”

Walker took over during Wheeler’s sophomore year. The two did not get off to a good start.

During the second game of Walker’s first season, a 17-7 Northwestern victory over Texas Christian University, Wheeler failed to take the field for a kickoff. He simply could not be found along the sidelines.

“He started off deep in the doghouse,” former teammate Missouri said. “He would try to do anything to get out of there.”

Walker would later say that Wheeler “responded the right way.” During that season, Wheeler made it into eight games. He made three tackles.

As a junior, on the team that shared in the Big Ten title, he started all 12 games at strong safety and finished third on the team with 88 tackles, 59 of them solo.

Heading into this fall, however, the Northwestern depth chart showed Marvin Brown ahead of Wheeler at strong safety.

If Wheeler was going to win back his position, he had much to prove on Aug. 3.

First to the starting line were the quarterbacks, linebackers and tight ends.

A video camera was also stationed there, equipped with a microphone, to catch players who tried to gain a head start. Larry Lilja, Northwestern’s longtime strength coach, ran the drill. An aide counted down: “3-2-1-go.”

The second group included the defensive and running backs, among them Wheeler. He made it through the first three sets of sprints--the 100-yard runs, the 80-yarders and the 60s.

The Final Sprints

Teammates, waiting at the finish line, shouted encouragement as he started the last set, the 40-yard dashes.

“Come on, you guys, let’s do it! Come on!”

“Come on, ‘Shidi!”

“Let’s go, ‘Shidi. Come on! Keep moving!”

Instead, he collapsed.

He stood up and walked about five yards before falling again.

Kevin Bentley, a senior linebacker from North Hills, Calif., went to his friend’s side with head trainer Tory Aggeler.

Wheeler’s asthma attacks--Aggeler said he’d had more than 30 during his three years in college--were so frequent that no one seemed especially concerned.

“They’d seen it so many times and expected him to get up,” a former teammate said.

It’s not clear from the videotape or from eyewitness accounts precisely what time it was when Wheeler fell to the turf.

Someone gave him a bag to breathe into, apparently believing he might be hyperventilating. Aggeler went to tend to another fallen athlete. Wheeler was left with an intern trainer. Teammates assured Wheeler he would be better, and his breathing indeed seemed to become smoother.

But he was not getting better.

“I’m dying,” he told them. “I’m dying.”

Players called out to Aggeler.

Recognizing Wheeler’s distress, the trainer sprinted to the gray emergency call box on the west side of the field.

It did not work. The hard rains had apparently washed out the line.

Aggeler asked for a cell phone. Linebacker Napoleon Harris produced his.

The trainer dialed 911. “We need a paramedic,” Aggeler said.

The connection failed before Aggeler could relay details about the developing emergency.

A second cell phone call went through about a minute later, at 5:04 p.m.

“We need to get an ambulance,” Justin Chabot, Northwestern’s coordinator of football operations, told the dispatcher. “ . . . He’s not doing good.”

Harris and another player, Bob Barz, ran to the parking lot and brought their cars around, preparing to take Wheeler to the hospital themselves.

A campus police officer who had arrived began pumping Wheeler’s chest.

Aggeler began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Several players watched as the trainer spit out phlegm and blood: In his struggle to breathe, Wheeler had bitten his own tongue.

Forming a semi-circle, players slung their arms over other’s shoulders. Quietly, they prayed.

It took the first rescue crews about five minutes to arrive after Chabot’s cell phone call was connected to dispatchers, but it seemed an eternity. Finally, the sirens of Fire Engine No. 23 closed in. An ambulance arrived about 90 seconds later, at 5:11 p.m.

Paramedics surrounded Wheeler and attempted to stabilize him. They hurried a tube down his throat to try to help him breathe. They injected him with adrenaline.

Around them, the conditioning drill continued.

Wheeler was placed in an ambulance. At 5:22, it headed for Evanston Hospital, about a mile west.

Just then, Walker reached the practice field. The coach had been doing yardwork at home when a phone call alerted him to the emergency.

He followed the ambulance to the hospital, along with several players.

Others, unaware of the danger Wheeler was in, went back to the locker room to shower. There, a rumor circulated that Wheeler’s condition had improved.

In truth, when the ambulance arrived at the hospital at 5:25 p.m., Wheeler was in cardiac arrest.

He was pronounced dead 20 minutes later.

A doctor emerged to tell Walker and the players.

“At that moment it all broke loose,” Walker said. “I was in a room with 10 of them. There were some in the corridor. Some were outside. I go out there. Kids [were] really in agony.”

Ikechuku Ndukwe, a 6-foot-5, 320-pound sophomore and offensive lineman, broke a wooden chair in the waiting room and then headed outside to the parking lot and began screaming.

Bentley, who had been holding Wheeler’s cell phone, used it to break the news to Wheeler’s father, George. Soon after, in an eerie coincidence, Wheeler’s mother dialed the cell phone number hoping to speak with her son. Linda Will was told that Rashidi was dead.

A hospital counselor led the teammates in prayer.

Afterward, players drifted back to the locker room, trying to comprehend the loss.

The talk turned to the supplements that Wheeler and others had taken before the drill. Trying to make sense of the tragedy, a grief-stricken teammate who is also a standout player apologized for introducing the team to Ultimate Orange.

Lilja, the strength coach, walked into the locker room. And the dazed players turned to him for consolation.

“Coach Lilj, we really need your words right now,” someone said.

Lilja sat for a long moment and reflected.

“It’s like losing a son,” he said, and began to weep.*

*

Times staff writers Sam Farmer, Rob Fernas and Lance Pugmire contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

‘Let’s go, ‘Shidi. Come on! Keep moving.’

Supervised by a trainer with a stopwatch, players continue to run Coach Randy Walker’s 28-sprint drill after Rashidi Wheeler collapsed. The Northwestern athlete was stricken as he started the final set of 40-yard dashes, and was helped off the field by a group of his teammates, circled.

*

THE DRILL: Run 100 yards in no more than 15 seconds. Rest for 15 seconds. Repeat 10 times.

Run 80 yards in 13 seconds. Rest for 13 seconds. Repeat eight times.

Run 60 yards in 10 seconds. Rest for 12 seconds. Repeat six times.

Run 40 yards in seven seconds. Rest for 11 seconds. Repeat four times.

*

‘I’m dying.’

As he lay on his side, panting, someone offered him a drink. Teammates sprayed Wheeler with water. A player stood over him to provide shade. A friend fetched his inhaler. Wheeler took a puff, trying to hold the medicine in his lungs. Teammate Sean Wieber cradled Wheeler and began to cry.