In previous years, Gwinnett Football League officials had considered making a heart ultrasound test mandatory for its youth players. Through a Suwanee-based company, it would have been a $58 charge.

The problem, league president Erik Richards said, was, "how do we go in and mandate people to spend another $60 or $65 to get this done?"

The death of Jahceem Xavier, a 13-year-old boy from the Snellville area, has changed that. After his very first practice in the league, Jahceem collapsed and died Monday from what officials with the county medical examiner believe was a heart attack.

Richards said it was the first death in the history of the 27-year-old league. He'll go to the league's board to recommend mandating a heart test for the league's 6,000 players with, he said, the strong endorsement of Jahceem's mother, Michelle St. Cyr. He does not expect resistance.

"At this point, we want to take Jahceem Xavier's name and use it to bring to the forefront that these scans are out there and they're available," said Richards, who planned to take his 13-year-old daughter Payton in for an exam before she leaves for a national boxing tournament.

As high school football practices in Georgia officially begin today, Jahceem's death has again provided a reminder of the potential danger in youth athletics. According to a study from the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina, seven teenaged football players suffered "indirect fatalities" — defined as a death caused by exertion or by a complication that was secondary to a non-fatal injury — in the U.S. in 2007.

Of the seven, four were heart-related. A fifth was caused by heat stroke. (The Gwinnett County Medical Examiner's office said there was no indication that heat was a factor in Jahceem's death.)

The six high school-aged teens were among 1,500,000 high school, junior high school and non-federation school participants in the U.S. last year, according to the study.

UltraScan in Suwanee stands ready to provide the discounted ultrasound test, which uses sound waves to create a moving picture of the heart. Company president Mickey King said that he offers the $58 exams —they can normally cost $1,000 or more — as a charity called Heart Screens for Teens.

King said that "without a doubt" that Jahceem's condition — an enlarged heart — would have been detected with an echocardiogram.

A Children's Healthcare of Atlanta cardiologist urged caution over the screens, saying that they can give athletes, parents and coaches a false sense of security if they pass the test. Pete Fischbach raised concerns about the possibility of false positives or, worse, false negative results.

"If you had a crystal ball, could you have prevented this?" Pete Fischbach asked. "The answer is maybe."

Fischbach recommended that the first step be a thorough examination with a primary care physician. The chance for a doctor to take an oral history of the patient and his or her relatives can reveal problems an echocardiogram or electrocardiogram — an eletrical record of the heart, also known as an EKG — might not.

It is why the physical that the Georgia High School Association requires for the state's high school athletes includes a lengthy questionnaire about the medical history of the athlete and his or her family. The GHSA does not require an echocardiogram or an EKG for reasons of logistics and concerns about the tests giving a false sense of security, executive director Ralph Swearngin said.

The Web site for Heart Screens for Teens notes that its tests are intended as a screen for hypertonic cardomyopathy — the most common cause of sudden death among U.S. athletes, Fischbach said — an obstruction of blood flow out of the heart. It isn't meant "to rule out all causes of heart disease among young athletes," according to the Web site.

Still, Fischbach believes that universal EKG screens for youths "will become a reality."

For thousands of Gwinnett Football League players, an echocardiogram will likely be a reality by next year. But for one of those players, it will be too late.