Jahceem Xavier had just completed his first official football practice Monday evening when the 13-year-old collapsed from what officials believe was a heart attack.

"He was doing what he wanted to do, even though it was what took him away from us," his father, Wayne Penn, said Wednesday evening from his Snellville area home.

Family photo (ENLARGE)

Jahceem Xavier was 'the good, all-American kid,' his father, Wayne Penn, says.

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The rising eighth-grader was pronounced dead at 9:45 p.m. Monday at Emory Eastside Medical Center in Snellville.

Xavier had played recreation league basketball and baseball, and had played football in the neighborhood, but asked his family to let him try recreational league football, Penn said. Penn and Xavier's 8-year-old brother, Zachary, were at the field when Xavier became ill after the practice.

The Gwinnett Youth Football League player died after completing about two hours of conditioning for the season ahead. Ted Bailey, chief investigator for the Gwinnett Medical Examiner's office said the cause of death appears to have been a heart attack, although it will be 12 weeks until test results can reveal for certain. The autopsy revealed the Shiloh Middle School teen had an enlarged heart, Bailey said. And the symptoms his trainer described were consistent with a heart attack.

Xavier, a 6-foot-1 eighth-grader who Bailey said weighed 231 pounds, had been working out with youth league teammates Monday evening at Shiloh High School. Youth league president Erik Richards, who said he was heartbroken over the first on-field death in his 19 years with the league, said the teen began vomiting shortly after a two-hour workout that began at 7 p.m. The trainer asked Xavier if he wanted water and he said no. The trainer gave him water and he vomited again. Xavier lost consciousness shortly after, Richards said, and EMTs were called. The trainer administered CPR twice on the field, Richards said, during which time Xavier went "in and out of consciousness."

Tuesday night practice was canceled, Richards said, so the 50-member team could talk about what happened with counselors, and hear from the minister of Xavier's family church, Voices of Faith in Stone Mountain.

Penn said Xavier was a fun-loving kid who never complained.

"If you are looking for the good, all-American kid, that was him," Penn said. "He made all A's and B's in school, and whatever you asked him to do, he would do it."

Just lately, Penn said, Xavier started to let his sense of humor show more, recently entertaining his father with dance imitations.

"I never laughed so hard," Penn said.

Penn and his family moved to Gwinnett County from New York in 2002, first landing in Duluth, then moving to the Snellville area. It was there that Xavier matured into a handsome, tall, confident teen, Penn said.

"He was so young," Penn said. "There was so much he never got to do. He never got to go on a date."

"We just want to keep hammering home that our thoughts and prayers are with the family," Richards said. "I've already had calls from Buford, South Gwinnett and other associations, saying they want to help. Anything they [the family] need, we'll help."

The Gwinnett Youth Football League counts about 6,000 players on 260 football teams, Richards said. No student can participate in the recreational league without a physical exam signed off on by an MD, a DO — doctor of osteopathy — or a physician's assistant, Richards said.

Michelle St. Cyr, who is a nurse and Xavier's mother, said she started to wonder why more advanced screenings aren't routinely used to determine a student's fitness for strenuous team sports.

A co-worker mentioned one school that offered echocardiograms to players for a reduced rate, St. Cyr said. And she and Richards are talking about seeing if that would be possible in Gwinnett, she said.

"At least that way you could see the heart," St. Cyr said. "You could see if there was a problem."

Xavier's mother said her son decided to try organized football this year because, "he played street football, and he loved it and he was really good at it. He was tough, he was solid – that's what he wanted to do."

Xavier's funeral will be at 11 a.m. Monday, at the Voices of Faith church in Stone Mountain. Greg Levett Funeral Home is handling arrangements.

Since Xavier's favorite color was red, his mother said, she had a request for those friends who'd be attending the service on Monday.

"I would like for all his friends, if they could possibly wear something red," St. Cyr said. "Not necessarily a shirt, maybe a little pin, a little tie, a little handkerchief in their pocket. Just a small red thing. He would love that. He would have loved that."

The last time a teenage football player died in Gwinnett during workouts was in 2005, during spring practice in April.

Central Gwinnett freshman Jermaine Howard, who was participating in off-season conditioning drills to build up his strength for football trials, collapsed while waiting to lift weights. He was 15 years old.

Staff writers Scott Bernarde and Susan Gast contributed to this report.