The death of Marion County player Erick Gutierrez this week is a reminder that football is only a game.
That's the message that Jim McFather, the coach of Marion County's opponent this week, Schley County, is sending his players, who will wear No. 54 stickers on their helmets for Friday's game in tribute to a player that will be missed on the opposing sideline.
Gutierrez, a senior who had been on the Marion County varsity since he was a freshman, collapsed during practice on Tuesday afternoon and was unable to be revived. Gutierrez is the second Georgia player to die on the field this year.
"They are going to play hard, and we are going to play hard," McFather told WRBL-TV sports anchor Shawn Skillman in this story. "You reach out to your fellow man. You try to make it out the best way you can, and try and utilize it for a good point."
Gutierrez is the second Georgia high school player to collapse and die during practice this year. In May, Cook running back Roy White died after a hard tackle during spring drills.
On Wednesday, Marion County High mourned the loss of a popular student.
"We had a lot of things - kids crying, having to work through some grief, and some of them wrote letters to the parents," Marion County principal Glenn Tidwell told the Americus Times-Recorder. "Some made posters in his memory, and some designed a T-shirt that quite a few of them will have on Friday night at the game. We started to work on a page in the yearbook dedicated to him, a number of things. I've learned over the years if young people get in there and work and do something to make the situation better, it really helps them."
Tidwell told the newspaper that there would be a moment of silence before the game and that the band might play a song in Gutierrez's memory at halftime.
Students from Marion County and Schley County formerly attended the same school, Tri-County, until splitting in 2000.
-- Produced by The Georgia High School Football Daily staff
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