Dream never realized
By Gene Frenette, The Times-Union
Holly Benedict is doing all she can to stay strong, but there's only so much a mother can do when navigating through a grief process with no timetable.
It's been four weeks since her oldest son, 24-year-old Heath, was found dead in the family's San Jose home from sudden cardiac dysrhythmia and dilated cardiomyopathy, all the result of a previously undetected enlarged heart. The 6-foot-5, 330-pound offensive tackle from Newberry College was preparing for this weekend's NFL draft. Scouts projected Benedict as a third or fourth-round pick, until his family was blindsided by a tragedy that profoundly impacted hundreds of people who knew the outgoing, popular lineman.
"I don't want to spend every day crying, crying," Holly said. "There's true physical shock, your hands shaking at times."
For Holly and her husband, Ed, along with Heath's 16-year-old brother, Brent, who plays football at The Bolles School, the draft only serves as a reminder of a shattered dream.
"I'm sure some day the good memories [of Heath] will outweigh the grief, but we haven't gotten to that point yet," Ed said.
Holly believes two things have sustained her family, starting with their faith and "incredible support system," including people at Jacksonville's United Methodist Church which they regularly attend.
Another is making sure that Brent, the only sibling Heath left behind, is properly nurtured through what figures to be a more difficult adolescence.
"Brent has never experienced grief of this kind," Holly said. "Our priority is we have a 16-year-old that deserves to have a normal, functional life."
By all accounts, Heath Benedict's life was spent as a dominant athlete who impressed people with his gregarious nature. Family, friends and his ex-coaches take comfort in recalling stories of the gentle giant's desire to socialize at every opportunity.
Since Heath's death, Holly estimates that the family has received 300 to 400 cards or phone calls from people who fondly remembered him. There was a card from employees at a Waffle House in South Carolina, and another from New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin, who coached him at the Senior Bowl. Officials from the Jaguars, who scouted Benedict "more than any other NFL team," according to Heath's father and college coach, also called to express their condolences.
"He was a fun, approachable guy, full of life," said Todd McCullough, a former linebacker at Florida who became friends with Benedict while coaching his brother as a volunteer assistant at Bolles. "If you spend an hour with him, you feel like you made a great friend."
"A social butterfly"
Benedict's parents say describing their oldest son as an extrovert is an understatement. The most telling evidence might be a two-hour train ride the family took on a vacation through Holland, his birthplace, when Heath was 16.
The family lived in Holland until Heath was 18 months old before Ed, an aircraft mechanic, transferred to Pensacola. The Benedicts later settled in Greenville, S.C., where they resided until moving to Jacksonville two years ago.
Heath always wanted to sight-see through the country where he was born. What transpired on that train ride, say Benedict's loved ones, is a microcosm of how he went about his life.
"The whole time, he struck up a conversation with these people on the train, and when he came back to sit near us, we were just glad that he found somebody who could speak English," Holly said. "Then Heath says, 'Oh, they didn't speak English.' "
A language barrier didn't prevent Benedict from engaging in lengthy dialogue with complete strangers. It's a textbook example of what many believe is Heath's most lasting legacy. Even while acquiring a reputation as a devastating blocker who often "pancaked" defensive linemen, Benedict had an irresistable urge to connect with people in more meaningful ways.
Frank DeLaurentis, his high school football coach at the Peddie School, a boarding school in New Jersey where Benedict played for three years, vividly remembers a postgame moment to illustrate it. Benedict, who played nose guard on defense, went out of his way to console an opposing center that was at a loss to contain him.
"This kid was in tears because he couldn't do anything against Heath," DeLaurentis said. "So Heath goes up to him afterward and tries to pick him up, telling him not to feel bad. He didn't laugh at him or ridicule him. That's just the kind of guy he was. He loved to compete, but there was a compassionate side, too."
At Newberry, where he transferred after one redshirt year at Tennessee, more than 600 people at a Division II school with just 900-plus students attended Benedict's memorial service. Newberry football coach Zak Willis says it was a testament to Benedict's people skills, not his athletic gifts.
"The reason his death had such a big impact on our campus is what he was as a person," Willis said. "The contributions he made as a human being were far greater than what anyone could do just as an athlete."
Willis told several Benedict stories to make his point, but the one that resonated with him was about the virtue of forgiveness. During Benedict's early years at Newberry, Willis kicked a player off the team for drug use, but not without first listening to a plea from Benedict to give him a second chance.
The player booted off the team mistakenly thought that Benedict was "ratting him out" to Willis. Once Benedict left his coach's office, Willis said that player unsuccessfully tried to assault Benedict with a chair. Last year, after two years away from Newberry, the player finally returned to school. Despite the assault attempt, Willis was told that Benedict invited the player to his house as a dinner guest.
"Heath believed in a forgiving God and he lived that way," Willis said.
About the only area where Benedict didn't get high marks was in school. He was a classic underachiever. Though bright, his parents admit he routinely brought home no better than Cs. Heath lasted only one year at Tennessee, partly because he wasn't attentive to academics.
"He drove the teachers [at Peddie School] crazy because he didn't make the grades they thought he was capable of," Holly said. "At Tennessee, let's just say the social butterfly really flapped his wings."
His first love: baseball
From the time Benedict was in elementary school, no matter the physical activity, he intimidated peers with his immense size.
He tried almost every sport, including swimming, basketball and a stint as a soccer goalie in high school.
"The only thing he couldn't master was kayaking," Ed said. "At a family reunion, he sank the boat almost as soon as he got in the water."
But where Benedict excelled most growing up was on a pitcher's mound. During his junior year at Peddie, his pitches routinely clocked above 90 mph. The big right-hander threw two no-hitters that season. He attracted tons of major-league scouts, but the attention evaporated after Benedict injured his pitching elbow and it couldn't be properly fixed with surgery.
On April 30, 2000, the medical verdict came down that his baseball career was over.
"Heath was devastated," Ed Benedict said. "That was his whole life at that time - to play baseball."
The next day, Syracuse and Boston College called to offer him football scholarships. Before long, there were 31 Division I offers for a behemoth lineman that Rivals.com rated as the seventh-best offensive tackle prospect in the country in 2002.
Despite transferring from UT to Newberry, Benedict's stock didn't tumble much with NFL scouts. He became a two-time Little All-America, a first for Newberry since 1979, and became the first Division II player invited to the Senior Bowl since 2004.
At the NFL combine, Benedict fumed over his 5.07 time in the 40, which is a good time for a player of his size. However, he insisted to his family that he could run a 4.8, and he later backed it up in his Pro Day workout, clocking a 4.78.
Though it's impossible to know where Benedict would have been drafted, the consensus was he had a solid NFL future because his size and speed overcame any negative perceptions of playing on the small-college level.
"[benedict] wasn't somebody who was a sleeper out there," said Tim Mingey, the Jaguars' Southeast region executive scout. "He did well at the Senior Bowl, especially in the pass-protection phase. With his speed and range, he could play tackle or guard.
"I interviewed him at the school on two occasions and again at the Senior Bowl. I thought he had his priorities set. He wasn't naive at all. Everything from his character and how he was raised, it was all good."
Then on March 26, something went terribly wrong. While his parents and Brent were vacationing in Greenville, they became concerned when they had trouble reaching Heath. They called McCullough and others to check on him at their house. When McCullough arrived, a neighbor had already been inside and found Heath's dead body on the couch.
For McCullough, it was a painful reminder of his freshman year at Florida when his ex-roommate, fullback Eraste Autin, collapsed during summer workouts and died six days later from heat stroke complications.
"Just a bad, bad deal," McCullough said. "It shakes you to the core."
Bolles School football coach Corky Rogers, who got to know Benedict after the NFL combine when he began working out in the school's weight room, added: "Heath was a special cat. The first words out of his mouth were always pleasant and unassuming. I still can't believe he's gone."
Heart of the matter
There was great irony in the cause of Benedict's death because, in many ways, people believed his heart was one of the biggest things about him.
His outgoing personality always seemed to win others over, such as at the Senior Bowl, where spectators were usually kept off the playing field. Somehow, Heath talked a security guard into letting about 40 of his friends and family in after the game so they could take pictures.
As a high school sophomore, when Heath received a blank card in the mail from a stranger requesting his autograph, he obliged and also sent back a seven-page letter.
"It didn't matter who you were. [Heath] talked with you and made you feel real comfortable," Brent said.
In the end, the autopsy report revealed that Heath's immense heart was too much for his body. A normal heart, about the size of one's fist, weighs between 200 and 425 grams. Ed was told by the coroner who performed the autoposy that Heath's heart weighed 550 grams.
Though Heath was always big for his age, nothing in his medical past led his family to believe anything was wrong. He occasionally complained about being tired, but nothing out of the ordinary, Ed said.
An echocardiogram, a test that uses sound waves to evaluate the heart's anatomy and function, is needed to detect an enlarged heart, which often leads to heart failure because the organ cannot pump enough blood to meet the body's needs.
It's a rare case when an elite athlete such as Benedict, who was found to have no drugs in his system, dies from this type of condition. The NFL has had a handful of heart-related deaths to active players in its history, the last being San Francisco 49ers guard Thomas Herrion in 2005 when he collapsed immediately following a preaseason game in Denver. An autopsy showed Herrion, 23, suffered from a previously undetected heart disease that caused blockage in his right coronary artery.
As the NFL draft commences Saturday, the Benedict family says they'll tune in to the ESPN telecast just to see where some of Heath's friends - Vanderbilt tackle Chris Williams, LSU cornerback Cheris Jackson, Tennessee quarterback Erik Ainge and Furman fullback Jerome Felton - are selected.
For now, and the foreseeable future, the Benedicts are focused on making sure their other football-playing son has a healthy, productive life.
Heath made a habit of telling Brent that he would "never be bigger or better" than his older brother, but when Brent wasn't around, he told acquaintances just the opposite. Brent, a sophomore at Bolles, is already 6-5, 275 pounds. Football for him is currently on hold because he tore meniscus in his knee. He's scheduled to have surgery Wednesday to repair the damage.
Today, Brent Benedict has a more important doctor's appointment. He's going in for an echocardiogram.
gene.frenette@jacksonville.com,
(904) 359-4540
Sounds like a classy kid. Man that sucks.
