Stringer Family Recalls Sadness

MINNEAPOLIS — Cathy Stringer, sitting in Luxury Box 114, gazed down at the Minnesota Vikings and tried to find words to describe her overwhelming feelings of emptiness. Her middle child, Korey, is gone--the first player in NFL history to die of heatstroke--and she will never forget the night she got the news.

“You know how you shake up a bottle of champagne and then pull the cork?” Cathy said. “Well, that’s how it felt. Just like that cork just popped out of my chest and my whole soul exploded. It’s like a mother’s nightmare for someone to tell you your child is dead, especially when they aren’t running the street or carrying guns. It was very hard. Very hard.”

Her feelings of sadness bubbled to the surface Monday night when the Vikings honored the Pro Bowl tackle during a 28-16 victory over the New York Giants. Her chin trembled and she dabbed at her eyes when the Vikings added her son’s name to the ring of honor before the game, and his No. 77 jersey was retired at halftime.

“That was my son. That was one of my babies,” said Cathy, who, because of knee-replacement surgery, never saw Korey play at the Metrodome. “They tease me at work: ‘Your who?’ I’d say, “My baby. I don’t care if he weighed 500 pounds, that’s my baby.”

The ceremonies were as awkward as they were poignant. Stringer’s widow, Kelci, and parents plan to file a $100-million lawsuit against the Vikings, whom they claim were negligent and unprepared to deal with severe heat sickness on the day he fell ill.

A new twist came late last week when, in response to a newspaper report, Viking Vice President Mike Kelly confirmed controversial and possibly dangerous dietary supplements were found in Stringer’s locker around the time of his death. His agent, James Gould, has insisted Stringer had a clean toxicology report and no evidence of supplement use.

Meanwhile, the family hungers for answers.

“We’re not really so much concerned with the money, his mother and I,” said Stringer’s father, James. “We’re not what you would call money-mongers. We’re accustomed to getting by, but what’s right is right. If there’s a wrong that has been done, we certainly want to know. We want to know the circumstances that surround our son’s death. Why it happened and if it could have been prevented. I think any parent in America would want to know.”

Said Cathy: “I don’t have a son anymore that can come through the door and grab me and give me a big kiss. And it hurts so bad. I still have a smile on my heart because I still have a lot of good things said to me about Korey. That makes me smile on the inside. But I still have so much pain because I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how something of this magnitude could happen.”

Gould said the Vikings apparently have no intention to settle the suit.

“The core issue is this thing will end up in the courtroom unless the powers that be do the right thing,” he said. “And it’s headed for the courtroom. I think the fans don’t want to see that happen. I think the family doesn’t want to see that happen. I know there’s a lot of players that don’t want to see that happen. I think it’s going to be very difficult for this team to overcome it until they do the right thing.”

For a night, the questions could wait. Red McCombs, the Viking owner and a central figure in the lawsuit, gave Kelci a hug as he presented her with her husband’s framed jersey.

“Korey was loved by all Vikings,” McCombs told the crowd as he stood at midfield, ringed by 40 former Vikings. “He was the ultimate team player. Korey’s impact lives on with the Vikings, and it will live on forever.”

Then, Kelci spoke. She thanked her husband’s friends on the team, the fans, even McCombs “for deciding to present this jersey to me and [our son] Kodie himself.”

There had been some speculation McCombs might pass along the presentation duties to Reverend Keith Johnson, the team chaplain. But he decided to do it himself, something Kelci had requested.

She was on the field before the game when the Korey Stringer banner was unveiled and placed alongside those of Viking greats such as Ron Yary, Alan Page, Fran Tarkenton and Jim Marshall.

“I’m just happy that they recognize Korey gave all he had for his team,” James Stringer said. “He was proud, very proud, to be a Minnesota Viking. He gave it his best shot with this team.”

But Cathy Stringer said football played a minuscule role in her relationship with her son.

“He was a momma’s boy,” she said. “It eased off a little bit once he got his family, but still he called me to check in. He’d call me and say, ‘I’ll be home on Tuesday. I want you to make that lasagna, or at least have a pot of spaghetti ready.’ We talked very little about football. We did a lot of laughing.”

Monday brought more laughter--and plenty of tears. It was the first time all season Kelci arrived in time to watch her husband’s former teammates emerge from the locker-room tunnel.

“This is the first game I’ve gotten emotional,” she said. “I’m freaking myself out, and it’s just a football game. But to not see him and there’s so much energy going on in here. It feels like something’s kind of missing.

“Remaining composed in this situation is real difficult.”