A Tragic Offseason for Northwest

Miller's Death Is Second to Hit Football Family

The five best friends of Northwest High School football player Edwin "Dek" Miller approached the lectern on Wednesday night at Covenant United Methodist Church as brothers united in sorrow and loss. Heads bowed, they formed a somber processional, stepping toward the microphone only to turn away at the last second, struggling to summon the strength necessary to speak in honor of the missing member of their group.

They stood together, each just 15 or 16 years old, searching for a remedy to their pain. In a packed room of more than 200 at the first of what will be more than a week of memorials for Miller, they weren't alone.

"The day of the accident, I was the last person to hold him," said Troy Anderson, 16, shaking his head. "I went to get him water and when I came back there he was on the track. I called the coaches to come over. I just told him he'd be okay. He wasn't. He wasn't."

Miller, 16, of Germantown, died Monday after collapsing at a voluntary conditioning workout with other football players at the school on July 2. The cause of his death is unknown, but family members were told by attending medical personnel that Miller showed signs of dehydration and possible heat stroke. Autopsy results are pending and are not expected until next week, according to a spokeswoman for the D.C. medical examiner's office.

"I thought I had more time to see him," James Reed, 16, said through tears at the Montgomery Village church as he offered comfort to Miller's mother, Nahdi Nah. "Every time I wanted to quit something, he would tell me not to. And for him, I never will."

The Northwest football team began this summer in a state of transition as Coach Mark Maradei, who was hired in February, prepared for his first year guiding the Jaguars. Miller and his friends, a group of rising juniors hoping to earn spots on the varsity roster, turned to summer conditioning in search of any advantage they could gain heading into the upcoming season.

Then, one tragedy struck. On June 29, Jaguars standout Hassan Dixon was injured in a car crash on Interstate 95 in Virginia that killed his younger sister, Shiane Dixon, 12, and injured three others. Three days later, the group of junior and senior football players who regularly attended voluntary workouts saw Miller pass out on the track. Four days after that, Miller was dead.

"I haven't coached one play or one down of football at Northwest High School yet," Maradei said. "We haven't experienced a high or low from a football standpoint, yet here we are going through something so traumatic for every part of this football family, this community."

In more than a decade coaching at Rockville, Magruder and Watkins Mill high schools, Maradei never had to deal with the death of an active player. He admits that he, too, is in shock. But Maradei knows the team will take its cues from him, so he has focused on the natural support that stems from any team.

The Jaguars will attend Miller's wake on July 17 and funeral on July 18 in their jerseys, per the request of Miller's mother. They will place stickers on their helmets for both Miller and Shiane Dixon during the upcoming season.

Yesterday evening, the voluntary workouts resumed at Northwest as the football family tried to return to normal.

"It's important, especially for adolescents, to get back into some comforting routine," said Robin Goodman, a New York clinical psychologist who specializes in grief and trauma counseling for youth. "Teenagers are really great at being supportive for each other in groups. They'd rather be around each other than grown-ups. There's something very powerful about the group, where it represents something bigger than one event or one person."

The day of Miller's collapse, members of the football team were participating in agility drills and running sprints. Preseason conditioning is allowed by the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association prior to the opening of official team practices on Aug. 15, as long as the workouts are open to any student regardless of their athletic participation.

Although it limits organized team practice, the MPSSAA does not have uniform state-wide regulations regarding heat acclimatization, such as those that were recommended by a National Athletic Trainers' Association task force in June to gradually increase levels of training. Any specific rules regarding the length or, in the case of football, number of full-pad practices, are left up to individual school boards.

All the family wants now, Miller's uncle Alston Nah said, is the same thing his friends crave -- an understanding of why this happened.

"Seeing those young men talk about how much Dek meant to them, reminds us all how great an effect he had, even though he was so young," Nah said. "He had always fancied himself a football player and he was especially excited about this season -- the chance to be on varsity. We know he would have pushed himself as hard as he could go, it's possible he overexerted himself. It's just hard for any of us to understand."