Area Coaches Reachout To Marion County

Buena Vista, GA - When the coaches at Brookstone met with their team today they took some time to tell the players how much they mean to them. In a game where success is based on wins and losses, the death of a high school player puts the sport in perspective.

Marion County senior offensive lineman Erick Gutierrez died on the practice field Tuesday night. He was getting ready to run a play, put his hands on his knees, and fell to the ground. A cause of death has not been determined. The senior that has played every offensive snap for the Eagles in 2009, will be missed not just on the football field.

“He was a wonderful kid, outgoing, I don’t know anyone that did not love him. He was a great kid,“ Marion County Principal Glenn Tidwell said.

Marion County will play their home game with Schley County on Friday. It was scheduled to be Senior Night and the Eagles will honor Gutierrez as well. Their opponent will also pay tribute to Gutierrez by wearing a number 54 sticker on their helmets.

“They are going to play hard, and we are going to play hard,“ Schley County head coach Jim McFather said. “You reach out to your fellow man. You try to make it out the best way you can, and try and utilize it for a good point.“

Marion County head coach Bill Montgomery or any players were available today, but other area coaches know that this is the one of most challenging times for that program.

“You have to stay strong, you need a lot of help from God,“ Central head coach Ron Nelson said. “We pray to god that we would never have to go through that situation on the field. My heart goes out to those kids and that coaching staff.“

Nelson says he has lost players in car wrecks and during the school year but never in the season in which they were playing.

“The way he died, he died on the field, and when I was that age, if I had to go, that is the way I would want to go, wearing the pads,“ Brookstone head coach Blair Harrison said. “Those kids had to watch taken off the field, and did not know what was going to happen. Adults handle this stuff a little better, but the kids that are young and still growing, and it hurts me to know what they are going through.“

Harrison worked at a high school in Tennessee before coming to Brookstone and says a player died at the school a few months after he left. “We lost a baseball player there, my friends were still coaching there, and they said, ‘it was the worst thing they ever been through.‘“