Korey Damont Stringer was a professional American football player in the NFL with six seasons under his belt, drafted by the Minnesota Vikings in 1995. Before that he played for Ohio State University for two years, so there was no doubting that he knew how to train hard and play hard.
He was a big guy at 6 ft 4 in and 346lbs, and as an offensive tackle, was accustomed to being in the thick of any action on the field.
Very early on in his career he fully understood that to be the best training was the key to success. To improve performance, drills had to be done, stamina had to be increased, physical limits had to be exceeded, pushed in every training session to increase speed and strength, until the body just couldn’t take any more.
On the morning of July 30, 2001, he was at the Minnesota Viking’s preseason training camp, going through the drills with his teammates, drills he had undergone hundreds of times before, when he began to suffer from the blistering heat. The 100 degree temperature was draining him of what little energy he had left and he was unable to complete that session, nor the one in the afternoon.
Determined not to let his teammates down, he vowed to return the next day, which he did, donning full pads for the exercises ahead. During the session, he started to have trouble breathing, and actually vomited three times.
Despite this, he continued to train through his discomfort, bravely pushing on in the withering heat regardless of the early warning signs, signs that he ignored and nobody noticed.
Two and a half hours later the training session was done, but so was Korey Stringer.
He barely managed to reach the air-conditioned shelter off the field, weak and dizzy, before collapsing.
He was immediately rushed to the hospital with a temperature of 108 degrees, where he was diagnosed with severe heatstroke. He never recovered and passed away the next day from a death that many doctors stated was entirely preventable.
The symptoms he was exhibiting the day previously were clear indicators of what is known as exertional heatstroke. If the signs had not gone unnoticed by the coaches, or the high temperatures had been factored into the training schedule of the day, who knows, maybe Korey Stringer would have had a few more seasons playing the game he loved.