April 10, 2005 - Al Lucas, 26, Los Angeles Avengers OL/DL



Disbelief at the Death of a Big-Hearted Player
By CLIFTON BROWN

Stunned over the death of Al Lucas, hometown friends of Lucas and members of his Arena Football League team tried yesterday to fathom how someone so young and so strong had died playing football.

Lucas, a 26-year-old offensive and defensive lineman for the Los Angeles Avengers and a former member of the N.F.L.'s Carolina Panthers, died Sunday from an apparent spinal-cord injury sustained while trying to make a tackle on a kickoff against the New York Dragons at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Lucas, 6 feet 1 inch and 300 pounds, lowered his head just as he hit the kick returner, Corey Johnson, and his blocker, Mike Horacek. Television replays appeared to show Horacek's knee hitting Lucas's helmet. Lucas fell to the ground, motionless and unresponsive.

Players on both teams knelt in prayer, and a hush fell over the crowd of about 11,000 while paramedics tended to Lucas. After being immobilized, Lucas was taken to California Hospital Medical Center in downtown Los Angeles, where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy was expected this week.

Lucas, a native of Macon, Ga., was the first player to die in a game in the Arena Football League's 19 seasons. He is survived by his wife, De'Shonda, and 2-year-old daughter, Mariah.

"I think it's safe to say we'll be investigating every aspect of this situation, hoping to learn anything that might prevent this from happening again," Chris McCloskey, the league's senior vice president for communications, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Lucas was injured in the first quarter of the game, which the Avengers won, 66-35. Asked why play had continued, McCloskey said that the game was in the third quarter by the time Lucas was pronounced dead. He said that the league commissioner, David Baker, met with the owners and the coaches of both teams at halftime to discuss the situation.

"At halftime, we knew it was a serious injury, and in the third quarter, we were informed he had passed away," McCloskey said. "At that point, the first priority was to notify the family. If you stop the game at that point, you're basically making an announcement, and the family had not been notified. The family was not notified until there were about four minutes left in the game. At that point, we felt it was in everyone's best interest to finish the game."

Many of the Avengers players participated in a grief-counseling session yesterday.

Lucas's death also shocked many in his hometown, Macon, where he was a star football player at Northeast High School. He spent last fall as an assistant coach at Northeast. His father, David, is a state representative; his mother, Elaine, is on the Macon City Council; and his brother, Lenny, was also a high school football star and now plays for the Macon Knights in the Arena Football League's minor league.

Reached by telephone yesterday, Alvin Copeland, who was the athletic director at Northeast when Lucas played there and still holds that post, was trying to absorb the loss of a popular figure in the community.

"Kids began calling me last night, asking me if it was true," Copeland said. "At that point, I wasn't sure, but I went on the computer and found out. That's when I started calling people, but I couldn't believe it.

"Al was a big person with a great heart. I remember when we used to have weight-lifting competitions, the other guys used to say, 'You might as well give the trophy to Al now.' But even though he was big enough to scare you, he was a warm person."

Lucas played at Troy University in Alabama, where he earned a degree in criminal justice. He won the Buck Buchanan Award as a senior as the top defensive player in Division I-AA. After spending the 2000 and 2001 seasons as a defensive lineman with the Panthers, Lucas helped Tampa Bay win the 2003 Arena Bowl before signing a three-year contract with Los Angeles.

Several N.F.L. players have died shortly after games. Chuck Hughes of the Detroit Lions, who had a heart attack during the fourth quarter of a game in 1971, is believed to be the only N.F.L. player to die during a game.

"Anything that happens in our sport is of interest to us, and there is a possibility something can be learned from it," said Greg Aiello, an N.F.L. spokesman. "We're very interested to hear what the cause of his death was."

Aiello said that N.F.L. regulations required an ambulance and paramedics at every game, along with stretchers, carts and oxygen, and a doctor who specializes in injuries that may require rapid intervention.

Arena Football League officials said that similar personnel are at their games.

"He was treated on the field immediately, and he was at the hospital within 30 minutes," Baker, the commissioner, said of Lucas in a telephone interview. "You expect that you may deal with serious injuries in our sport, but never anything like this. We will review everything. But accidents can happen, and this one was tragic."