The kid hated wrinkles. Not many 17-year-old kids hate wrinkles -- at least not enough to take a hot iron to them, rather than ask mom to do it.
Fermin Vialpando III hated wrinkles and was not shy with an iron. Classmates who knew him at
Harrison High School in
Colorado Springs expected Vialpando to attend the homecoming dance on Saturday night with creases as sharp as a razor's edge.
Fermin was not there. He died the night before. A center on the Harrison football team -- the Panthers' honorary captain that night -- he collapsed during the third quarter against Ridgeview Academy, his team leading 40-15. Teammates later said he had a seizure. A team doctor was there right away. A fearful mother ran from the stands.
The young man was carried from the field on a stretcher and taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead. Doctors found no drugs in Fermin's system and by late Friday were unable to offer a plausible explanation for why a strapping, seemingly healthy young man would be suddenly dead. A pained mother tried her best to makes some sense of any parent's nightmare. "Doctors said sometimes with an athlete it puts a strain on their heart," she told the Denver Post. "I don't know what happened."
Early autopsy results indicate Fermin had an
enlarged heart.
No surprise to those who knew him. With dreams of being a chef he took culinary classes at a local college in the morning and worked in the kitchen at a Wyndham hotel in the evenings. And yet in the midst of chasing that dream he also took time to prepare a plate for those without, volunteering at a downtown soup kitchen serving meals to the homeless and the poor. Harrison principal Cheri Martinez, speaking to the Post, described the young man as "a great, gentle soul."
I'm not quite sure why Fermin's death touched me.
Part of it may be that high-school football players rarely die. The
National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury reports that only two died last year due to football-related causes. Eight others died because of causes such as exertion or medical complications following an injury.
Part of it, I'm sure, was the feeling that touches every parent's heart when any child dies. And undoubtedly, Sundae Vialpando's grief is the greatest fear of any parent with a child in soccer, little league, lacrosse, swimming and football, of course -- at any level, from Pop Warner to the
NFL.
As I read accounts of the young man's death, his life and the passion and commitment that friends, coaches, family and school officials all say he brought to each day, I also could not help but think of
Terrell Owens.
I watched the most over-the-top hyped game in the history of helmet-wearing mankind -- Owens' return to Philadelphia on Sunday, where his
Dallas Cowboys
lost a 38-24 thriller to the
Philadelphia Eagles
-- and wondered why we pay so much attention to T.O. Or why pay any attention at all. His broken-heart, pill-induced non-suicide attempt last month was the most over-covered story of the year. It sent chat rooms and news rooms across America into def-com 4 mode, all because the most egotistical, self-centered athlete of our age poured his pain-killers into a drawer.
T.O. is a great talent. Still a potential game-changer whenever he steps onto the football field. But if he played any other sport we'd have been through with him long ago. But as
Sports Illustrated Senior Writer Jack McCallum so adroitly noted in the magazine's most recent issue, sports fans -- for whatever reasons -- continue to give the
NFL
and its players a pass, even after its sex-boat parties, misdeeds by coaches, continued police encounters and enough DUIs to fill a precinct's holiday weekend quota.
Owens' publicist, the now well-known
Kim Etheredge , was no doubt suffering from sleep depravation when sat at the podium during her client's press conference as offered this ditty on why Owens could not have been trying to commit suicide. "Terrell Owens has 25 million reasons why he should be alive," she said. Her tone came across as snide as it reads on this page, and the arrogance of flaunting T.O.'s $25 million contact as the elixir that prevents him or anyone from being depressed enough to contemplate suicide is just insulting.
The reasons Fermin Vialpando should be alive, at least from what I've read, would make him
Bill Gates to T.O., the pauper. With a tight crease and a giving heart, his life was lived richly, rather than one lived just being rich.
