School Athlete Dies After Exercise Player Trained At Kennedy Gym
Submitted by N.O.V.A. July 2005
Times Picayune 	06-22-1998


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An Orleans Parish football player died after a weight-training conditioning
exercise at John F. Kennedy Senior High School this past week, school officials
said.

The coroner's office identified him as Jonathan Jeffery Lecoq, 16.

Lecoq had been doing weight training and wind sprints in the high school gymnasium
when he fell ill, said Orleans Parish School Board member Scott Shea.

After other students and staff called 911, he was taken to Memorial Medical
Center, where he died Thursday night.

The cause of death has not been determined, although Orleans Parish Coroner
Investigator John Gagliano said heat-related troubles have been ruled out.

Special toxicology and microscopic studies are being performed, but the results
are not in, Gagliano said.

The New Orleans Police Department will review the documents from the Coroner's
Office and determine whether a police investigation is needed, said spokesman Lt.
Marlon Defillo.

Grief counselors will visit the school this week to meet with team members,
officials said. School staff were supervising the exercises, school spokeswoman
Linedda McIver said.

In addition to being on the Kennedy Cougars football team, Lecoq had played for
the Francis W. Gregory Junior High Gators.

He was a member of St. Paul's Lutheran Church.

Lecoq is survived by his parents, Ronald Lecoq and Cherryl Landry Lecoq; a brother
and a sister, as well as two grandmothers and a great-grandmother. Funeral
services will be held Tuesday at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, 1625 Annette St.