COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Aaron O'Neal, who died July 12 during a voluntary summer football workout, will never step inside the University of Missouri's planned $16 million athletics training center.
But those who follow in his footsteps will work out, study and watch game films in a renovated building with a room named after O'Neal -- one of a series of season-long and permanent remembrances for the backup middle linebacker announced Monday by coach Gary Pinkel.
The Tigers' first two games of the season -- Saturday against Arkansas State in Kansas City and Sept. 10 in Columbia against New Mexico -- will include a moment of silence for O'Neal. Tiger players will line up at their 25-yard line in honor of O'Neal's uniform number.
They will wear his number on the back of their helmets, display No. 25 on two grassy expanses inside Memorial Stadium and keep his locker vacant until 2008, the year the redshirt freshman from suburban St. Louis was scheduled to graduate.
"This is not my decision at all," said Pinkel. "The players came up with this."
Boone County medical examiner Valerie Rao determined last week that O'Neal, 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, died of viral meningitis, a rare inflammation of the tissues and infection of the fluid covering the brain that is rarely fatal. O'Neal's father has filed suit against Pinkel, athletics director Mike Alden and 12 football trainers and strength coaches, alleging negligence in the moments leading up to O'Neal's death.
The 19-year-old redshirt freshman started to struggle about 45 minutes into the hourlong workout, during which players wore shorts, T-shirts and cleats but no helmets or pads. Teammates told Rao that O'Neal had complained on the field of blurry vision and other weaknesses that the family's attorney said should have alerted workout leaders that his problems were more than simple fatigue.
Several of O'Neal's teammates also expressed concerns about O'Neal's care in interviews with Rao, including the decision to take a stricken O'Neal from the Faurot Field locker room to the football team offices rather than University Hospital. Both buildings are across the street from the football stadium, although on opposite sides.
While Pinkel said he is limited in discussing O'Neal's care because of the pending lawsuit, those concerns were never voiced to him.
"We started practice Aug. 8," said Pinkel, who was on vacation in Las Vegas when O'Neal died. "I never heard one player or one parent walk into my office with any concerns."
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