Terrible news from Orlando this afternoon as UCF is reporting that redshirt freshman wide receiver
Ereck Plancher died shortly after conditioning drills this afternoon.
[Plancher] was pronounced dead shortly before noon Tuesday at a hospital, said Joe Hornstein, UCF's associate athletics director for marketing and communications. He said Plancher took a knee, became unresponsive and was taken by ambulance to the hospital.
"We're still gathering some of that information at this point," Hornstein said.
Here's hoping that for both Plancher's family and UCF, the cause of his death can be determined and the parties can move forward. These events sadly happen on occasion in the sporting fields across America. Sometimes they're due to negligence, other times harmful supplements, and other times just a dangerous and undiagnosed condition.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-18-2008 @ 6:38PM
xbig69benzx said...
That is rather unfortunate, my prayers go out for the family who now has to deal with the death of their son. Sports can be quite dangerous, with inherent risks, and sometimes people die when just playing games. Perhaps he had some sort of allergic reaction to the polluted air? Just a guess, my african american friend Tony has had asthma. Perhaps it was something completely different like a more physical injury, but still a dangerous sport. I personally didn't like seeing a good percentage of my tuition fees going towards a game. I would have like to see more emphasis on math and science. I went to UCF and saw how the funds were managed. Some buildings were falling apart and underfunded, whilst the football program recieved much hype and funding. The president make a rediculous amount of money, and doesn't even talk to the students anymore; I tried to talk to him and he just walked past like I didn't exist. I knew I had to get out of that school. Another UCF problem is that the water system was built in the 60's and the rumor was that you shouldn't drink the UCF water. It couldn't have turned out to be more true, as the UCF water turned out to be contaminated with haloacetic acid. My economics professor says that he was being censored, I really don't like UCF and I think they should award me an honorary degree for having to put up with so much mental trauma. Gifted Honors students shouldn't have to put up with so much bull. I'm going to spil the beans about UCF becuase they might be partially responible for this poor man's death, pending investigation of course.
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3-18-2008 @ 8:54PM
Sonic said...
www.stopsuddendeath.net
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3-18-2008 @ 9:26PM
Andrew said...
This is such a sad story and my prayers go out to the young man's family and the UCF family. I just wanted to say is that there needs to be a better program to monitor situations such as this one. The only problem that cannot be fixed is how athletes, especially football players, push their bodies so hard so they will not look "mentally weak" and possibly miss out on a chance for playing time.
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3-18-2008 @ 9:34PM
Big Will said...
Just a quick note... as a former college athlete (at Purdue University for the football team)... Funds are either designated to the school or Athletic Dept. University's have booster clubs that fund most of the scholarships. Many buildings are self sustaining because of revenue's generated by the actual athletics. Also something to think about are bowl bids. I know personally that when we went to the Rose Bowl in 2001, Purdue University received $2 million while every other team in the Big 10 received $1 million. The Big Ten itself also received $1 million. Tuition goes strictly to the University for the student body (professors, building maintenance, etc.) Just clarifying this misconception. Also something to think about is the revenue generated from football games/basketball games. These revenue's stay with the Athletic Department. That is why they are self sustaining.
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3-19-2008 @ 11:14AM
tanning lotion said...
That is truly sad. My prayers go out to his family.
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3-19-2008 @ 6:33PM
cwebster said...
My son died April 21,1999 while playing a pick up game at his school during lunch time. He past out never gaining contiousness. The he didn't have asthma or any heart conditions. The Dr. stated that it was a pulminaryheart disfuntioin. It tends to happe in teens and young adults from the ages of 16-24. What could have happen is that a heart valve swells closing the blood flow to the heart causing the heart to stop.
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3-20-2008 @ 12:18AM
please reform schools said...
It is a shame, athletics is all about abusing the mind and body just to get to a certain level.Sports should only be recreational, this is too dangerous
People are getting dehydrated because there is nothing to drink.
Electrolytes depleted in any way can cause a heart attack. Asthma is the worst especially when coaches refuse to monitor people when they insist on making athletes keep up.
Hopefully this athlete didn't consume anything like energy drinks or something with ephedrine.
Most universities are like what one blogger posted. Money is spent on the wrong things, rarely are they invested in academia or the students.
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3-29-2008 @ 1:12AM
Courtney said...
I go to UCF and heard about the accident the day after it happened. While flipping through the school paper, I began to read the incredibly short article reporting his death...on one of the last pages. You would think that such an atrocity would make the first page...
I absolutely agree with the last comment; coaches need to pay closer attention to the individual rather than placing so much emphasis on the athletes keeping up with their demands. As a former athlete myself I was always frustrated with my coaches because it's as if they thought everyone had the same physical makeup and didn't account for the individual's strengths and weaknesses. Just because they want everyone to perform on the highest level (highest level meaning some unreachable superhuman level where the coach's expectations are rather unrealistic)doesn't mean that every player is going to get there at the same pace. I've seen exceptional players pushed to their limits and sometimes humiliated because their coach was holding them to unrealistic standards and compared them to others on the team.
I feel that many coaches need to seriously take a step back and re-evaluate their coaching philosophies.
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