The Death Of An Athlete

It rained hard the day the Ashtabula (Ohio) High football team faced Northeastern Conference rival Conneaut High in October. The field was a quagmire, but that didn't stop Benji Ramirez, a 17-year-old senior defensive tackle, from playing the game of his life. He made four tackles and recovered a fumble as the Panthers won 21-6. "Benji stuck a lot of dudes that night," says Ashtabula defensive end Fred Gage. For his efforts, Ramirez was named the Panthers' defensive lineman of the game.

Three nights later, on Halloween, Ramirez collapsed during practice after a tackling drill. He was taken to the Ashtabula County Medical Center, where, at 6:02 p.m., he died, apparently of a heart attack. He was buried three days later in his football uniform, the bright yellow BULA on his shirt almost obscured by poems, pictures and other mementos placed on his chest by grieving friends. Four hundred people attended the funeral, including city officials, his coaches and his teammates. Everybody liked Ramirez.

"He was a really nice guy," says Aaron Morris, a senior at Ashtabula High and one of Ramirez's closest friends since second grade. "I don't think Benji had any enemies. He was really low key. He didn't even like rock 'n' roll."

One of the mourners was Mark Craffey, a first-team all-county offensive tackle, who wrote an essay about Ramirez's death for an English class. "Benji Ramirez died today," Craffey's piece began. "I don't even know exactly how to write about it. I feel cheated and helpless." Craffey concluded, "I asked Benji to tell me how. I asked God to tell me why. There was no answer and I cried."

Indeed, at first Ramirez's death seemed to defy explanation. The practice had not been strenuous, and the weather wasn't hot. The 6'3", 201-pound Ramirez appeared to be strong and fit. He was a member of the Ashtabula High wrestling team as well, and he was an avid weightlifter. After two years as a jayvee player in football, Ramirez had finally cracked the varsity lineup and seemed to be improving every day. He had even received a letter from Youngstown State expressing interest in him. A year earlier, he would never have dreamed that he could even be considered for a college football scholarship. "He'd come a long way as a football player," says Sean Allgood, the Panthers' star quarterback. "Everybody was really surprised."

But as Ramirez's dazed friends struggled to console one another in the hospital halls shortly after his death was announced, Tony Rivera, team manager for the Panthers, took Ashtabula High coach Jim Orr aside and told him what many of Ramirez's friends suspected or knew: Ramirez had been using anabolic steroids. Orr passed the information on to Jeff Brown, an investigator for the Ashtabula County Coroner's Office. Coroners don't routinely test for steroids, but after a shocking death like Ramirez's, they will follow every possible lead. According to Dr. Robert A. Malinowski, the county coroner, the rumors of steroid usage by this young, healthy athlete changed the focus of his office's investigation. "We conducted it with that in the backs of our minds," he says. "Benji had no history of heart problems, so there was basically no reason for him to die."

Because the pathologist who normally would have performed the autopsy was unavailable, Ramirez's autopsy was performed by the coroner's office in Cleveland, which sent its findings to Malinowski. In an interim report released on Dec. 14, Malinowski announced that Ramirez had died of cardiac arrhythmia, a heart condition caused in this case by a diseased and enlarged heart. On Jan. 10, Malinowski released his final report, which included two findings. First: "Although we were not able to identify any specific steroid in the blood of Benjamin Ramirez, we can conclude through field investigation and some changes seen in the body at autopsy that Benjamin Ramirez did use anabolic steroids." Second: "It is the strong opinion of County Coroner Dr. Robert A. Malinowski that use of anabolic steroids did in some way contribute to the death of Benjamin Ramirez."

Malinowski, the father of 10 children and an avid football fan, is quick to point out that a coroner's report can't always deal in incontrovertible facts, and that steroid use wasn't listed as the cause of Ramirez's death but as a contributing factor. "I've been very careful to say it's my opinion," says Malinowski. "We don't have to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt in this business. We don't have to read people their Miranda rights. Yes, it's possible I could be wrong. But I doubt it."

If Malinowski is right, Ramirez is the first U.S. athlete whose death has been linked officially to the use of steroids, a practice that, by all accounts, is spreading across the country faster than experts can track it.

On Jan. 31, the tiny St. John High gym on Station Avenue in Ashtabula was rocking. St. John, which had a 14-2 record, was taking on 13-2 Ashtabula High, which had handed St. John one of its two defeats of the basketball season. The gym had filled long before the end of the preliminary jayvee game, and many fans who couldn't get inside stood outdoors by the windows, trying to gauge the course of the game by the crowd noise. The scene seemed cut from the pure, mythical heart of America. Here was high school sport drawing folks together in a celebration of youth, competition and rock-solid, middle-class values.