Still at a Loss

Alan and Sherry Stowers want to know why their son, Travis, a 6-foot-2, 220-pound 17-year-old, died after high school football practice last year.

They want to know what went wrong, why, how.

“If I have a calf die here on the farm,” Alan says, “I do whatever I have to do to find out why that calf died. Travis wasn’t a calf. Travis was a boy. And nobody seems to care about finding out why he died.”

Alan and Sherry Stowers want to make things better. They want to know what happened at Clinton Central High’s football practice last July 31 and they want to make sure things have changed. Changed for their other sons, Jared, a sophomore, and Clayton, an eighth-grader. And for other sons who head off to football practice every summer.

If practice lasted too long, they want to know it will never happen again. If not enough water was offered to the players, they want coaches to make sure that will never happen again. If the boys on the field weren’t being watched closely enough, if no one in authority paid attention to the boy who vomited in the morning, who was wobbling in the afternoon and who was dead by evening, then Alan and Sherry Stowers would like to know that from now on football coaches everywhere will pay attention.

“We taught our children to be honest, faithful, responsible and accountable for their actions,” Sherry says. “How can we not ask the same of the coaches and the school?”

On July 31, 2001, Travis Stowers, a nationally recognized livestock caller, talented public speaker, earnest owner of calves, hogs and horses, future veterinarian and modestly talented but fervently interested offensive and defensive tackle, drove himself and his younger brother Jared to the second day of football practice.

In the morning session of two-a-days, Travis vomited into his helmet. At lunch, Travis told Jared he wasn’t feeling well. After running a series of 10 40-yard sprints, the Bulldogs left the field for water. Travis walked unsteadily, Jared said, then rested his shoulders against his brother.

“Travis said he wasn’t feeling good,” Jared says. “He sat down and leaned on my leg. He couldn’t get up.”

Jared Stowers sometimes blames himself, his mother says.

“Jared was a freshman. It was his second day of high school football. And Jared keeps trying to figure out what he could have done,” Sherry says. “Jared didn’t do anything wrong, but he keeps trying to figure things out.”

The Stowers family is speaking publicly about the death of their son for the first time.

Next week the family plans to file a lawsuit alleging negligence on the part of the Clinton Central school district and the Indiana High School Athletic Assn. It took the Stowerses nearly six months after Travis’ death to hire Indianapolis attorney Bruce Kehoe.

This is not about money. According to Indiana law, a state institution can’t be held liable for more than $300,000 in damages. The Stowerses aren’t doing this for the money. Kehoe has held several settlement conferences with the school. What the family wants most of all is change. Change in the way practice is conducted and monitored.

Filing this lawsuit hurts. Sherry is a teacher in the county district. Alan played football at the local high school, as did his brothers, father and grandfather.

There is a photo montage in the family’s living room. Travis’ great-grandfather, Oren, is in his stance, wearing a leather helmet and no facemask; Max, Travis’ grandfather, is standing tall and looking stern in his football gear; Alan, a 1978 graduate of Clinton Central, is a proud Bulldog in his gear; and there are Travis, Jared and Clayton, together, in helmets and pads.

“We are friends with the seven school board members,” Alan says. “The principal [Ron Dunn] was my driver’s ed teacher. The athletic director [Linda Barnett] was a teacher. We know these people. This is not what we wanted.”

In a couple of weeks the Clinton Central Bulldogs will begin football practice. Two-a-days starting in the morning. A break for lunch. Then more practice. Just like last year.

George Gilbert will begin his 15th season as Bulldog coach. On his Web site, Gilbert says the Bulldogs lost a lot of talent from last year’s 7-4 team and that they will need to toughen up on defense. It will be a busy year for Gilbert. He has added wrestling coach to his job description.

The summer heat has arrived in central Indiana, just like last year. The humidity rises during the day. By 1 p.m. at the Stowers home, it feels as if you must push through a wet paper towel to walk from the car to the front door. Insects seem suspended in the thick air.

On the day Travis collapsed at football practice, the heat index was 110. That’s what the Stowers family’s attorney, Kehoe, has discovered.

On the day Travis collapsed at football practice, another athlete, a big man who made millions of dollars playing the game, also collapsed at football practice. Korey Stringer, the Minnesota Viking All-Pro offensive lineman, felt tingling in his hands. He got wobbly and incoherent and nauseated, just like Travis. Like Travis, he would soon be dead.

A year later, there has been a minute-by-minute accounting of what happened to Stringer at his final practice. A state organization charged with regulating workplace safety investigated Stringer’s working conditions. The NFL has studied the practice situation. A $100-million lawsuit has been filed against the Vikings by Stringer’s widow, Kelci. A nationally known trial attorney is handling the case.

Alan and Sherry Stowers still don’t know what happened to Travis that day. Other than the standard autopsy and coroner’s report, no county or state organization has done any investigation.

The school did an investigation using its own lawyer. No written report was issued. All the Stowerses were told was that nothing improper had happened on the day Travis died.

So what Sherry and Alan have found out is in bits and pieces. What they know comes from Jared, a couple of other players and emergency medical personnel.

“If I had had the boys out baling hay with me,” Alan says, “and Travis had gotten sick in the morning and I had told him he had one more bale to do in the heat of the afternoon, then he died, what would have happened to me, to our family?

“Children’s Services would have been here. I might not have my kids today. But Travis dies at football practice and nothing happens.”

Kehoe says something was done wrong.

According to the detailed schedule posted on the Clinton Central football Web site last summer, on the second day of practice the Bulldogs were to be on the field for 260 minutes. According to IHSAA rules, “The first two days shall be non-contact practices limited to two 90-minute sessions per day or less with a two-hour break between sessions.”

Gilbert’s practice schedule was followed, Jared says. That means the Bulldogs spent 80 minutes more than allowed on the field. It was after the 230th minute of practice when Travis wobbled, then sat and leaned against his brother.

According to the practice schedule, this would have been about 1:45 p.m. At 2 p.m. an ambulance call went out. Eight minutes later, the ambulance arrived. Emergency personnel found Travis in a shower. He was packed in ice. His body temperature was 108 degrees. Travis, after being transported to the hospital in nearby Frankfort, was taken by helicopter to a trauma center in Indianapolis, where he died.

Since then, Alan and Sherry Stowers have tried to live life for Jared and Clayton while trying to learn what happened to Travis.

This is the second son Alan and Sherry have lost.

Travis had been born more than two months prematurely along with his twin brother, Trent. Travis weighed 3 pounds 11 ounces. Trent was bigger. He weighed more than 4 pounds but his lungs weren’t developed. Trent was 9 weeks old when he died.

As Sherry and Alan talk about Travis, Jared and Clayton sit quietly.

After playing football last fall, by rote almost, more as a robot than as a boy, Jared has quit the sport.

“Jared’s a better athlete than Travis,” Alan says. “We’re glad he’s not playing for this coach and this team the way things are. But we didn’t pressure him and we still love football. Football didn’t kill Travis.”

Jared says he just couldn’t play for Gilbert. “What happened on that day shouldn’t have happened,” Jared says. “We practiced too hard for too long. There are a lot of things that haven’t been answered. I wouldn’t feel right playing football right now.”

Clayton will play for his eighth-grade team. “But I will say this is my last year of football. I really don’t want to play for Coach Gilbert,” Clayton says.

Maybe Clayton will change his mind. His parents won’t stop him.

“I find myself not wanting to let the boys out of my sight,” Sherry says. “But you can’t do that to Jared and Clayton. They deserve to live life. It’s just that football practice was the last place I worried about sending the boys. The last place.”

The Stowers living room is filled with pictures of all the boys. They share the same smile, the same serious eyes.

It was Travis who first joined Future Farmers of America and began showing calves, horses and hogs. It was Travis who first become a nationally known livestock judge and who chose football as the sport he loved. It was Travis who drove Jared to football practice, who got Jared to share in raising the hogs and calves for the county fair. It was Travis, the big junior chaperoning his freshman brother through the pitfalls and tests of the high school gridiron.

Sherry Stowers makes a point of saying Travis’ autopsy report showed no evidence of steroids or dietary supplements in his system. “Not even a trace of caffeine,” Sherry says. “Travis always made a big deal about telling Jared and Clayton to drink water and not pop.”

Just two days before his high school practice started, Travis had attended a football camp at nearby De Pauw University. Almost every day of the humid summer, Travis was out baling hay and caring for his animals. “My boy was in good shape,” Alan says. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

But what happened? And why?

On the day after Travis died, Principal Dunn and Athletic Director Barnett said Travis had died of a brain aneurysm, which, if true, would have left the school and coaches without culpability. Except it wasn’t true. The coroner’s report said he died of heatstroke.

Since then, the coach has used obscenities and hung up the phone on a reporter. The superintendent has refused to comment. The principal wouldn’t leave his office to speak.

Efforts to reach all three again last week failed.

The IHSAA issued seven pages of instructions on conducting practice to coaches and its position is that that is the end of its responsibility. “Shouldn’t the IHSAA want to know if the coaches are following the rules?” Alan asks.

A month after Travis died, Alan and Sherry received some mail. It was from Travis, addressed to himself. It was written at a Future Farmers of America leadership seminar. It was a list of goals Travis had set for himself.

“Travis, work on your leadership skills. Talk to people. Get out of your comfort zone. Raise those hogs!

“Remember, you have great parents that always support you.

“Be a role model for your brothers. Love them ... and remember their help. Support them in all they do.

“Help out all you can on the farm. Work on your academics. It will get you where you want to go. Keep your faith and improve on it. Follow the best you can. And with all this for you, you can go wherever you want. Good luck! Remember, Travis Stowers.”