Sports Deaths

The Loyola High football coaching staff met one morning last month to discuss the importance of players having plenty of water available during two-a-day practice sessions. Later that day, a football player at San Fernando High collapsed after a conditioning practice in which he ran sprints for an hour. Sergio Echevarria, a 17-year-old senior, died two days later as a result of heatstroke.

Amy Joyce received her wake-up call loud and clear the last two weeks after reading countless stories about the football-related deaths of two Southland high school players. So at a cost of $1,500 to her family, Joyce has scheduled her son, Cody, a senior wide receiver and defensive back at Hart High in Newhall, to undergo an extensive physical examination today. Hart is one of the area's top teams, and Cody, a top college prospect, seldom leaves the field during a game.

An autopsy Tuesday failed to determine what caused former Syracuse basketball player Conrad McRae's death at UC Irvine on the first day of practice for the Orlando Magic's summer league team. McRae, 29, who had a history of heart problems, collapsed while running wind sprints during the team's practice Monday afternoon. Details are sketchy, but UC Irvine spokeswoman Karen Young said someone called campus police, who arrived with Orange County paramedics at 1:41 p.m.

For the second time in four days, a Winston Cup stock car driver was killed in a single-car accident at Daytona International Speedway. Rodney Orr, 31, of Panama City, Fla., who had never before attempted to qualify for a Winston Cup race, was killed Monday when his family-owned Ford Thunderbird hit the wall on the driver's side as it came out of the second turn during a morning practice session. The crash occurred as many drivers were preparing to leave the track and fly to Hueytown, Ala.

The county coroner has ruled that severe head and neck trauma killed a 17-year-old high school football quarterback in a September game against Costa Mesa High School. Adrian Taufaasau, who played for Coronado High School, never regained consciousness after being tackled by Costa Mesa players Sept. 20 at Newport Harbor High School. He was pronounced dead two days later at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana.

USC distance freestyler Megan Holliday, who overcame a heart condition to continue her swimming career, died Saturday after falling the night before from an off-campus home she shared with six teammates and three other friends. Holliday, 20, had lent her bedroom key to a friend and was locked out of her bedroom. Friday night, she went into the room next to hers, that of teammate Cindy Makens, and climbed out of Makens' window.

The tears once shed here for Earnest Killum have since dried. The healing has begun for those at Oregon State who were touched by the death of a basketball player from Lynwood High who never really got to play. Healing is what they speak of now. Life goes on, they say. Earnest Killum Sr. arrived here Friday night from his home in Atlanta to be a part of "Dad's Weekend," during which students show their fathers around for a couple of days.

The wire fence surrounding Coronado High's football field was decorated Monday with green and white balloons. Flowers, letters, candles and poems had been placed there, along with photos of Adrian Taufaasau. Taufaasau, the Islanders' senior quarterback, died Sunday afternoon at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, two days after he was injured in a game against Costa Mesa. He had been tackled by three or four players and never regained consciousness. He was 17.

Craig Arfons died after his jet-powered hydroplane flipped several times at more than 300 m.p.h. during an attempt to set a world water speed record at Sebring, Fla. He was 39. Arfons, whose father, Walt, and uncle, Art, both held world land speed records in the 1960s, was pronounced dead from internal injuries shortly after the accident on Sebring's Jackson Lake. Members of Arfons' World Speed Records Inc. racing team monitored his run and estimated Arfons' boat was going about 370 m.p.h.

He was the best of times, he was the worst of times. . . . There were always two of him: The Tooz, a raging, running-on-premium-and-lots-of-it, havoc-wreaking monster; and John Matuszak, a 6-foot-8, 280-pound puppy dog just begging for you to pat him on the head. The people who knew him by day adored him, remember him for his gentleness, his consideration, his unfailing kindness. The people who saw him out on the town on one of those nights didn't soon forget it.